Can’t decide which artwork looks best in your living room?

ArtTalk

Sometimes, you may like an artwork, but remain undecided on how it would appear on the walls of a particular space. The scale, theme and colours of the artwork versus the space in which it is expected to be housed can be of concern. The overall design, architectural features and the colour scheme of the area may affect how the artwork is perceived in that specific location.

Fortunately, there are several ways in which to overcome this issue. There are some collectors who prefer to put up the work physically on the walls to get a sense of how they engage with it, and to see how it appears on the wall. There are a few galleries and artists who, if they are known to the potential buyer will facilitate the process. They may loan the work, and have the display done on the desired wall, which gives the buyer a couple of days to make a decision. This personal touch can be very useful and permits experiencing the work in close proximity for a period of time before committing to it.

However, generally speaking, this level of personal touch may not be possible, especially when procuring works from other cities, and in such a situation, you have to look for other options. Technology can be a useful aid in providing tools to visualise the art in any given space and in making the process of selection more personal and relevant.

For instance, some of the online galleries offer the convenience of visualising the artwork with stock pictures of walls which might be similar to what you have, and that can help. While there are others, which are based on augmented reality (AR), where switching on your phone camera will allow you to see the artwork on your own wall. In addition, there are several Apps, with free and paid packages, both mobile and webpage-based that can aid in visualising the artwork in great detail. Some of these allow you to upload the photos of your walls and will even scale the work to match the dimensions of the space, others are AR-supported and allow you to move around and preview the art from various angles.

Free and paid options offer various packages, which you can choose based on the functionality and can be used to preview the artwork, check perspectives, colours and other design elements to get a better idea about how the art placement appears.

In addition, there are tools which also help you pick frames, auto scaling and lighting adjustments that make the process fun and simple.

(The author is an art consultant and curator)