How to Choose Art for Your Interior: Scale, Colour, and What Actually Works

Choosing art for a room is partly about taste and partly about spatial logic. This guide covers the latter — the practical decisions that determine whether a work feels at home or out of place.

1. Start with Scale

The most common mistake in hanging art is choosing a work that's too small. Art that's undersized for its wall disappears — even a beautiful piece loses impact if it's floating on an expanse of empty wall.

The working rule: for a work hung above furniture (a sofa, a sideboard, a bed), the work should span roughly 60–70% of the furniture's width. For a standalone wall, the work should fill at least half the wall's width.

If you can't find one work large enough, a horizontal grouping of two or three smaller pieces at the same hanging height can work equally well.

2. Colour: Harmony vs Contrast

There are two legitimate approaches to colour in an interior context:

• Harmony: The work shares tones with the room's palette. A warm-toned collage in a room with terracotta and natural wood. This approach creates cohesion and calm.
• Contrast: The work introduces a colour the room doesn't have. A single vivid accent in an otherwise neutral room. This approach creates energy and focal points.

Either can work. What doesn't work is art that has too many competing colours in a room that already has many competing colours — the result is visual noise.

3. Consider the Lighting

Works on paper — collage, prints, photography — look best in natural side light. Avoid direct sunlight, which will fade pigments and paper over time. For artificial lighting, a dedicated picture light or adjustable ceiling spot works better than general overhead lighting, which tends to create glare.

4. Match the Work to the Room's Function

• Living room: The room that can handle the most ambitious work. Choose something with genuine presence — a large-format painting, a strong collage, a work that rewards being looked at from across the room.
• Bedroom: Calmer, quieter works tend to suit. Abstract works with a limited palette, or photography, work well in a space designed for rest.
• Dining room: Works that invite conversation — something with an interesting story or an unusual subject. Nicolas Journoud's figurative paintings, which reference Japanese tradition through a Western eye, often work well in dining contexts.
• Home office: A work you've chosen, not one that came with the furniture. Something that says something about who you are or what you care about.

5. Don't Over-Think Matching

The most interesting rooms are not the ones where everything matches — they're the ones where something feels slightly unexpected, like a mid-century piece in a modern apartment or a traditional work in an otherwise minimal space. A room where everything coordinates is often less interesting than one that has genuine character.

Choose works you respond to genuinely. The interior will follow.

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Browse our Original Works collection, or filter by artist to find works that suit your space and budget. For specific advice, use our contact form — we're happy to suggest works based on photos of your space.