“Once I Had This Dream,” an exhibition of paintings by Gretchen Scherer, is at Art 3 Gallery through June 24. Scherer, who lives and works in Brooklyn, paints rambling manses and crumbling chateaux as seen through a fun-house mirror—their staircases swerving, their portraits multiplying, their baroque furnishings collapsing into a labyrinth of distorted decor. “I often think about the way I imagine spaces before I see them and how my ideas differ vastly from the way those spaces actually appear,” she says. “It’s these places we create in our minds that inform my paintings … The images I use to collage are mostly from homes in the Victorian era. These pictures hold a fascination for me and cause me to wonder if there is something lurking under the surface. As I’m collaging I imagine the people that lived in those spaces; I begin to catch glimpses of their former lives.” 

Gretchen Scherer, Philosopher with an Open Book, 2017, oil on panel, 18″ x 24″.

Gatekeepers, 2017, oil on panel, 18″ x 24″.

Beginnings, 2017, oil on panel, 18″ x 24″.

A Vast Mirror, 2017, oil on panel, 18″ x 24″.

Still with Us, 2017, oil on panel, 18″ x 24″.