Jennifer Sheahan: How to display paintings and prints

'Don’t be intimidated by whether it’s right or good — the only thing that really matters with art is that you like it'

Sat, 17 Sep, 2022 - 12:00

Jennifer Sheahan

Art, prints, and wall hangings are an integral aspect of interior design, providing anything from a finishing accent to a central feature in a room. More than anything in your home, what you choose to display on your wall is an opportunity to express your personality. If you’re an avid art collector, you’ll likely style your home around your artwork, choosing paint colours and lighting conditions that accentuate your chosen pieces.

However if you’re like the rest of us, you will probably do things the other way around and look for art and prints to go with your home. While there are lots of rules for the “right” way to style a space, as well as opinions on what constitutes “good” art, my personal stance is that if you see something you love — that makes you feel something — please forget everything else and just buy it.

Don’t be intimidated by whether it’s right or good — the only thing that really matters with art is that you like it. Whether you already have a collection of pieces you love, or you’re beginning the hunt to fill your home, here’s how to make the best use of that wall space.

WHAT SIZE?

I am very much in favour of filling small spaces with large items. As with furniture, if you’re short on space you may feel a natural draw towards smaller print sizes for your walls. This is a mistake — small items will actually make the space feel smaller. When it comes to the size of artwork, the bigger the better. For a more scientific approach, there are two general rules of thumb:

For a blank wall, your art should take up about 60-70% of the available space. That may sound like a lot, but I promise you the results will look good. So if you have a blank wall that is two metres high and two metres wide, you will want your artwork to be about 1.2-1.4 metres high and wide.

If you’re hanging your art above a piece of furniture, such as a couch or a table, the art should be around 60-75% the width of that piece of furniture. So if your couch is 2.5 metres wide, the piece of art hanging above it should be about 1.5-1.9 metres wide.

You can use either one large piece of art, or a number of smaller pieces together.

Prints with similar colours in the sitting area in Jennifer Sheahan's home in Rathmines. Picture: Moya Nolan

WHAT COLOUR?

Now that you have an idea of what sizes you’re looking for, your next criteria is to find the right colours. Last week in this column, I wrote about choosing your interior colour palette. My advice for that is the same as it is for choosing your artwork — start by looking at things that you already love — your clothes, your existing art, your furniture, the colours in your favourite cafe, etc. It’s quite likely that you’ll be drawn to similar colours without putting too much thought into it.

I also find it useful to refer back to the trusty colour wheel here. This will help you to create your desired effect through your chosen artwork — for instance, you can keep everything calm and minimalist by going monochromatic and choosing similar colours to your furniture. Or you can use your artwork as a focal point and create drama by choosing complementary or contrasting colours to your existing palette. I personally mix it up — in my living area, I chose three large prints side by side that reflect the existing colours in my couch and cushions.

This was actually a happy accident — I bought these prints years ago in the tourist office of a Bavarian town I visit a lot.

It just so happens that my couch and cushions ended up being similar colours — as I said above, we tend to be drawn over and over to the colours we like! In my dining area, which is the most common entertaining area in my house, I have mixed and matched a lot of art and prints in various colours and sizes to create interest and drama.

Jennifer's advice: Hang pictures high to draw the eye upwards.

HOW HIGH?

The general rule of thumb is to hang artwork at eye level, but I think this is silly because whose eyes are we talking about? I’m a squirt at 5ft 4in, so hanging anything at my eye level is too low. Therefore please abandon this rule and hang high. As with size, hanging items just that bit higher will draw the eye upwards and make you feel like the space is taller and larger than it is. If you’re hanging pieces above furniture, you need to leave a sufficient gap otherwise everything will seem crowded and cluttered. I like to hang my pieces a good 45cm above the furniture, and I like to leave just 15-25 cm between the top of the piece and the ceiling.

GROUPING ART

There are a million rules and diagrams for grouping art, such as for a gallery wall, but they all really boil down to this: space the pieces evenly, and keep the overall outline consistent.

The rules for sizing are the same as above — the grouped art should take up around 60-70% of the available wall space.

Pictures shelves with different colours and frame styles in Jennifer's living space. Picture: Moya Nolan

The only real way to get this right is to arrange everything before you hang it and keep swapping things around until it looks the way you want it. I have two picture shelves in my dining area which essentially make up a gallery wall, and it literally took me days of swapping and shuffling before I got it looking the way I wanted it.

Again I like colour and drama, so I have mixed and matched shades and frame styles and incorporated items such as candles and vases to finish the look. I have picked up a lot of prints and paintings that I like over the years, so I enjoy swapping these out every now and then to keep it fresh. You may prefer to keep colours and frames consistent — it’s up to you, but there’s no shortcut to this, just play around until it looks good!