Buying a piece of art is a wonderful feeling. However, unless you have a home the size of a palace with large undecorated walls and acres of space, it can be difficult to know how to best display your lovely pieces to their best advantage. Read on for our top tips, and you can start curating your collection like an expert.
Ensure you have the right hanging equipment
A well-designed art hanging system is key to ensuring that your pieces can be displayed effectively without any risk of damage to walls or the art itself.
Options include picture rails, specialist hanging frames, hangers, hooks and even incorporating specialist lighting fixtures to highlight your art’s beauty. There are also hanging systems that don’t interfere with a wall’s structure – ideal for those renting or those unable to drill into their walls for any reason.
Get arty with a gallery wall
Gallery walls have become mainstream and now seem to be a constant fixture on inspiring social media feeds and across the pages of interior design magazines. With so many having been unable to visit galleries for long periods due to the extended disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, homeowners are now opting to create their own gallery feel with gallery wall-style hanging installations.
Gallery walls are created by hanging a variety of pieces of different sizes and types but all with one theme in common, be it a matching frame, color element, or subject. Many homeowners also choose to install glass shelves on the wall to display the arty elements. Click here to know how the glass shelves act as a statement piece in your home.
Try layering
Art need not necessarily require hanging to be put on display. Instead, utilise a mantelpiece or a blank shelf and layer pieces to create a lively, maximalist aesthetic that adds dimension to the wall on which it rests without appearing too ‘busy’.
Layering flat art prints, paintings, portraits and photographs alongside other accessories and homewares is an easy method to catch the eye without making an excessive style statement or when wall space is limited.
Mix and match
All too often, when we think of ‘art’ we tend to imagine large and possibly old-fashioned painted portraits of rich white royalty or brightly coloured abstract canvases that we can’t quite understand.
In truth, art is so much more than that and can be intensely personal. For example, art can be your own photos. It can be the handprints of a toddler, a postcard sent by someone you care about, an interesting textile, a commemorative plate, or a hand-embroidered fabric. All are deserving of display in your home if you like them. Diverging from just traditional prints and expanding your parameters gives depth and diversity to a collection.
Find underutilised space
Your home shouldn’t just have art hung on the space above your sofa, particularly if there’s other wall space to be used. An eye-catching visual statement can be made by using wall space above doors, up and alongside vertical radiators or towel-hangers, above windows, or in otherwise unused nooks and crannies. Art can be presented just about anywhere and if you have it, it should be on display. Take joy in what you have collected.
Art is very often what makes sense or style in the eye of the beholder and can have a huge effect on a home’s interior look and feel. Mix, match and have fun with your collection – and enjoy having it on display to brighten your day as you go about your home life.
