Integrate works of art into your decor | In the rules of art

No doubt because it does as much good for the soul as it does for the eyes, art in all its facets is more and more present in our homes. Beyond a question of budget, its effects are largely due to the way it fits into a decor. Here are some tips to help you surround yourself.

Muriel Francoise
Special collaboration

Erika Del Vecchio and her partner François-Xavier Robert moved into their Mile End condo last spring. A few weeks later, they bought a large photographic work by Montrealer Chih-Chien Wang, represented by the Pierre-François Ouellette contemporary art gallery where Erika works. The print, titled Green Cloth, stages a moving canvas.

“I see a wave there, nature is present in everything”, confides this lover of the sea who hung her acquisition in the living room, near a water-green Eames chair from the 1950s received from a large- aunt. This outline of the decor invites you to escape, one of the main virtues of art. A wall carrying the spirit that will inhabit the place.

On a pedestal

Ceramics, vases and sculptures make it easy to embellish an interior. All supports are good to have them by your side. A wardrobe, a fireplace mantel, a window sill, a table … And for those who have something special: a column, as in museums, galleries or artists’ studios.

Photographer Sylvie Li found on Marketplace marble models for a bust of the Greek goddess Artemis and a vase with antique lines, which decorate a corner of her living room. An idea pinned on Instagram which reminds her of Greece and Italy, where she looks forward to returning on a trip.

“You can find ceramics throughout the house. Their shapes and textures inspire me, ”explains this young esthete who likes to compose still lifes with them. In stone, wood, metal, glass, new or vintage, the columns fit everywhere and can also be used as side tables if needed.

Niche objects

Even if the omnipresence of digital seems to suggest the opposite, a library has more than ever its place in an interior. Its shelves, where reference works and beautiful books can be stored, form the perfect niches for the little things that you care about, but don’t know where to put.

Erika Del Vecchio has chosen to install watercolors by Ripley Whiteside, from a virtual exhibition mounted at the start of the pandemic, as well as ceramics brought back from visits to craftsmen’s workshops, some of which date back to childhood. She also placed shells and other treasures collected on the beaches. “I have always had a very strong relationship with the ocean,” underlines M.^me Del Vecchio. The works that attract me are also often linked to this one. ”

Background

American interior designer Tara Mangini, from Jersey Ice Cream, has taken to collecting old paintings by forgotten artists that she finds a place in her projects, alone or associated with wallpaper. “I love old portraits. I find that they place the place in a historical framework, ”she observes. This idea, which became the signature of the office founded with her husband Percy Bright, created a trend. Perhaps the time has come to take the canvas inherited from your grandmother down from the attic.

Visit the Jersey Ice Cream website

Do you dream of acquiring a painting or a photo, but doubt the effect it will give to you? New technologies now make it possible to integrate a work into a snapshot of your interior. The Association of Contemporary Art Galleries (AGAC), for example, offers the free download of its application Collect, bringing together nearly 1,000 works offered in more than 40 Canadian galleries.

Learn more about the app Collect

A word of advice: dare to think big, provided that the room where the work will be installed allows an optimal perspective, or that the image opens up the space, and thus allows you to switch to an imaginary world.

Informed choices

To rub shoulders with art on a daily basis does not mean that you have to decorate your walls or collect rare pieces. A pretty chair or lamp is enough to personalize an interior. A great reader, Erika Del Vecchio has just installed next to her bookcase a Barcelona day bed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a design icon of the 1930s unearthed at the Centerpiece online gallery.

Is your budget a little tight? Keep an eye out for the special collections of the big decoration chains. The Danish brand HAY recently collaborated with the Belgian artists Muller Van Severen for vases and lights which immediately enhance the style of a house.

Discover the HAY x Muller Van Severen collaboration