KAREN HORTE interiors – Jul 2022

Art is an important element in a space, the final touch that makes it feel finished. Art allows people to express personality – yet choosing art for the home is often an afterthought!

Here are some tips for choosing art.

1. Choose artwork that fits the room’s decorating style.
2. Consider how size and placement affects room dynamics.
3. Ensure artwork colour complements décor.
4. Decide if you need a sculpture in your space.

Decorating Style

What is your style? Busy? Minimal? Funky? Refined? Minimalists may prefer one or two carefully chosen pieces of art to compliment a room, while people who enjoy more stimulation might like being surrounded by multiple, small pieces, such as family photos.

Size and Placement

Big art can overwhelm a room, whereas small art loses expression in big spaces. Artwork hung too high looks disconnected, while artwork hung too low competes with furniture. What to do?

In standard homes with eight- to nine-foot ceilings, a simple guideline is to hang big pieces at eye level, commonly about five-and-a-half feet off the floor (or six to eight inches above your furniture). If you prefer many small pieces of art, try grouping them into a gallery-like display to create the same type of focal point as one large piece.

Tips for gallery-style placement include:

1. Design your ‘grid’ on paper before you put holes in your walls!
2. Start with a large central piece and design around it.
3. Stick to a colour ‘palette’ and hang pictures with similar ‘tones’.
4. Personalize by mixing family photos with artwork.
5. Mix horizonal and vertical orientation.

Colour and Décor

Wall colour should support the artwork in your home. Here in Alberta a ‘prairie’ colour palette – influenced by our Alberta grasslands – is favoured in many homes. This palette features shades of muted green and blue that coordinate with the physical landscape of our beautiful province.

Prairie palette walls, as well as the new trend of complex cream walls, are versatile enough to support a variety of art colours, but certain art displays better on specific wall colours. For example:

• If you like art with strong colours, such as Warhol prints, then white or neutral toned walls will allow your art to ‘pop’.
• Baroque style pictures, like Rembrandt prints with muted tones, look best on ‘saturated’ (intense, darker, purer) colours such as maroon, or red-toned black.

Sculptures

Sculptures create a rich, multi-layered look in a room. If you do not have the space for pedestals, or for singular large pieces, you can opt to display unique, smaller sculptures, which are ideally displayed at eye-level, on well-lit shelves or bookcases.

Here are tips for acquiring and displaying sculptures:

• Pick a piece that complements your room.

• Avoid placing it in front of a busy background.

• Ensure it is well lit.

• Don’t let it impede traffic flow.

Art enhances the feeling in a home. Proper display of it will ensure you love the art you look at every day!