Gretchen Scherer’s paintings of affluent homes, studios, and libraries appear to expand before our eyes. Brimming with ornately framed paintings installed salon-style on richly papered walls, her half-imagined spaces are inspired by real places, which she infuses with a playful brightness and whimsy.

When we home in on one particular floral arrangement, framed artwork, or piece of furniture, it seems that there’s a sudden increase in how much more there is to explore. Scherer’s new solo exhibition, In Time at Monya Rowe Gallery, continues the artist’s fascination with historical interiors, from art museums and drawing rooms to palatial halls and ecclesiastical spaces.

Each canvas is devoid of figures other than those depicted in portraits, but there is always the sense that someone has been very busy. The artist leans into a kind of escapism or longing for not only elegant, luminous surroundings but a desire to immerse oneself, quite literally, in the world of art. In our era of steel, glass, concrete, and contractor gray interiors, Scherer celebrates craftsmanship and beauty.

Fantastical convergences of art history and architecture occur in pieces like “A French Cafe with Paintings,” where a Beaux Arts interior transforms into an ad hoc gallery with myriad famous works casually strewn about. Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” (1908-09) leans to the right, while Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s “At the Moulin Rouge” (1892-95) sits nearby.

Working in oil, Scherer’s choice of media nods to the same used to create many of the historical examples she includes. And as we increasingly contend with barrages of digital information and generative AI, the artist inundates us instead with the purely analog and handmade. It begs the question: in another 100 years, what will humans have been producing in our time that merits the same kind of awe and respect we have for these earlier creations?

In Time opens today and continues through January 9 in New York. See more on Scherer’s Instagram.