The phrase “square + triangle” describes an iconic image of a home: four walls and a gable roof. It is easy to draw and references a common visual language. But what complexities does this simple representation obscure?

Artists have visualized a broad range of feelings and associations with the idea of home. They reveal that home can be literal or abstract: a physical space in which we live, or a concept we enact. We can create a home with others or make it for ourselves. Home can be a source of care and comfort, or of political or interpersonal tensions.

This exhibition offers varied perspectives on home, domesticity, and placemaking. Some of the featured artworks examine our relationships with the physical buildings and landscapes we inhabit, while others explore the emotional resonances that form as we personalize where we live and how we share space. Yet other works—to borrow a term from the title of Steve DiBenedetto’s abstract painting—illustrate “elsewheres”: liminal sites with an aura of placelessness. These artists convey estrangement and a more fraught relationship with home through formal distortions, warped maps, or a creative reuse of domestic objects. Together, these selections allow us to reflect on the boundless ways home can look and feel.

This exhibition is curated by Augusta Weiss, Anne Lunder Leland Curatorial Fellow, and Andrew Witte, 2022–24 Mirken Family Postbaccalaureate Fellow in Museum Practice.