Far too often in interior design circles, we see wall art being the last consideration when putting a room together. It’s an afterthought, once the final coat of paint has dried and the furniture has been thoughtfully arranged, then a piece of art might be considered as an addition if it’s thought of at all.

We’re here to change your mind and argue that by relegating wall art to a final thought, you’re doing your interior design a disservice and missing out on opportunities. When given careful thought, a carefully chosen piece of wall art can bring together an entire room. We’re going to make a bold proclamation and state that wall art matters the most in interior design.
It’s understandable if you’re a little bit hesitant to give wall art such an essential role in your design decisions, but don’t worry. This post has been written as a guide on how to correctly and accurately choose pieces that will integrate well with your design philosophy, leaving you with a balanced interior.

It Provides an Instant Splash of Colour

Choosing an appropriate and synchronised colour palette can be a daunting task for even the most experienced interior designers. The incredible selection of incremental shades of paint available commercially can seem endless and overwhelming. It can seem like an impossible task to narrow down the choices of colours that best fit with your vision for space.

Our recommendation is to leave the paint options behind for a while and instead turn your attention to finding the perfect piece of wall art. Once you have a painting or canvas print that you adore, you can then leverage that piece as the foundation for your room’s colour scheme.

Your first task should be to pick out two or more shades of the piece that you feel would work well as your décor. Ideally, you’ll want to pick the pieces dominant colour, as well as some of less central shades which you can use as colour accents. Look for these colours in the items you’d like to use to decorate your room. To assist with identifying the colours you can use a phone app such as ColorSnap, allowing you to carry the colours with you as you shop and match it to items, wallpapers or paints.

It Can Create a Focal Point

One of the tenants of good interior design is that every room must have a focal point, such as a design element that instantly grabs the attention of eye drawing it onto the place, giving the viewer an idea of the rooms themes and colours. It might seem obvious, but a well-chosen piece of wall art can easily be that focal point.

Just picture your ideal piece of artwork proudly hanging above the fireplaces mantle or your favourite artists work standing above the bed in the master room. As an alternative consider a gallery of pieces which can add some intrigue to a traditional dining room or hanging some comforting tapestries in a cosy seating area.

If you’re planning to pick a piece of wall art as a focal point, then it’s essential to give the size of the piece some careful consideration. A small piece of art is likely to be dwarfed and lost in the surrounding furniture, while a piece that is too big can look out of place and overbearing. Double check any wall measurements to ensure you know how much room you have to play with.

It Can Add Texture To A Space

Not all wall art is the same. While you might instantly think of two-dimensional paintings or canvas prints, you should consider other varieties of wall art created on different mediums to help bring a range of textures to space.

In addition to traditional painting and prints, you should give some consideration to the likes of a shadow box, sculptures and 3D metal wall art that can add some impressive depth to space. If your design is more avant-garde, you can also add in some mixed media installations which can include digital art and screens.

These touches of extra texture can add some much-needed variety and visual weight to an interior, which on their own can influence the feel and tone of a room. Generally speaking, rougher textures can lend a sense of intimacy to a place while smooth surfaces can make a room feel sleeker and more sterile feel to a room.

It Can Complete A Room

Take a couple of minutes to think about some of the less than perfect interiors you’ve seen or created. Perhaps your first student digs or the flat that you shared with your friend when you left home. The chances are that these spaces felt a little bit unfinished or a bit rough. The odds are that nearly every room was finished with bare white walls.

Adding a carefully chosen piece of a wall art could have saved those rooms, helping pull together that would have otherwise felt like an unfinished space. It’s an extra push that will take a space from merely functional to appearing like something that’s been pulled directly from a fashionable interior design magazine.

The key is to pick a piece of artwork or hanging that melds and compliments the existing décor that’s been chosen for a room. Alternatively, it’s about selecting the décor that will fit in with the art that you’ve decided to display on your wall, just make sure it’s something that you’ll be proud to show for years to come.

Wall art doesn’t need to be relegated to the last thing you consider when thinking up the design of a space. In our slightly biased opinion, wall art is perhaps the most important thing to find when it comes to interior design. When used carefully and thoughtfully, a piece of artwork can provide the foundation which you can plan the rest of the room around. This post has been written to give a brief introduction to wall art within interior design, which we hope will allow you to take your interior designs to the next level.