How to select the perfect wall art for your home?

Here are some quick tips to choose the perfect art for your home:
1) Wall match, consider the colour of the wall the painting will be put on.
2) Theme match, does your home have a theme? Then the artwork should reflect this.
3) Define what do you want to achieve with the painting, whether you want to add or enhance the style of the room or make it more cheerful.
4)Define the size of the piece, take in consideration the ratio, wall vs art.

Wall Background

The first thing to consider before buying a painting is the colour(s) of your wall, the usual advice is not to match the colour palette of the painting with your wall to create a contrast to highlight the painting, but having the colour in a small quantity can be quite beneficial, making it easy to blend the painting in the style of the house.

Depending on your style you can use colours to brighten up a room or to make it more warm, selecting paintings with reddish or earthy colours.

Themed house

Another important point is to look at the theme of the room the painting will be displayed in, if for example the painting will be hanged in between your private library, a more classic artwork will suit better than some modern pieces. On the other hand if the room has a minimalistic style, a classic painting will not be suitable; instead you need something minimalistic or with a simple design.

The most important thing here is to play with the rest of the room and to make the painting a part of it, instead of just trying to fit any painting in any room, select it carefully to achieve the best results.

THE HOUSE'S TONE

This might be a no-brainer but you should always buy art that suits you, that is according to the house "tone", this means basically that if the house seems joyful and colourful a painting that follows the same style will suits better than a serious artwork such as a realism or a classic still life painting. Go always with your heart.

WALL-ROOM SIZE

Do you have a regular size room? yes? Then it is probably better to stick with a 100x100 cm painting maximum, otherwise it can overwhelm the balance of the room, this can be debatable though, you can use a few smaller paintings to create a composition as an option or have a taller painting if you have high walls(old townhouses usually have high walls 3-3.5mt).

Now if you have a bigger house or a warehouse-type of property you can definitely go for larger artwork, whether a canvas, panel or a mural.

Panels are big pieces of art done mainly on wood-like boards and they can be fitted in the wall for long periods of time.

A mural as you can expect, is art painted directly onto the wall, this can be done both indoors or outdoors.

There are many Melbourne-based muralists such as Jay MT and Makatron, plenty of styles - something for everyone's taste.

Article by Jay MT,

Muralist, Painter and Illustrator

Melbourne, Australia