How To Buy Art for Your Home, According to an Art Advisor and Gallerist

Buying art for your home can feel intimidating, especially if you’re not sure where to start. There’s lighting to think about, scale to get right and wall space to work with (or around). Then there’s the art itself: What do you love? What will you still love in 10 years? How do you know when you’re ready to buy?

We speak with art advisor and author of Collecting: Living With Art Kym Elphinstone, and gallerist Andy Dinan of Melbourne’s Mars Gallery about how to buy pieces that work in your home and how to display them in a way that feels personal to you.

What are the first things to think about when buying art for your home?

Kym Elphinstone: Buy what you love. Go to galleries, go to art fairs, go to graduate art shows at art schools. Really try and see as much art as you can. And when something piques your interest, or you find you’re intrigued by an artwork, speak to the gallerist or the artist and find out a little bit more about it.

Andy Dinan: Do it slowly. It’s a long road and you’ve got plenty of time, so don’t rush it. You’ve got to educate yourself on what you want from your art and that doesn’t happen fast.

How can you integrate art into a new build or a renovation?

Dinan: Bring a gallerist or advisor into the process early, ideally before the house is built. I’ve walked through houses that are fully constructed with nowhere to hang anything. Plan for niches, wall space and sightlines. Even a recess in a stairwell can completely change the way you experience a piece.

What about lighting?

Dinan: Lighting is everything. I always say there should be three types of lighting in every room: daylight, mood lighting and spotlighting. Your artwork has to look good in natural light, but also in the evening, so that’s where mood lighting comes in. And then you want a spotlight that highlights the piece directly. If you’ve got a cheaper work on paper and no budget for framing, the right lighting can still make it look amazing.

How should you think about wall space? Is open-plan living making it harder to collect and showcase art?

Elphinstone: Not necessarily. I think open-plan living encourages us to think about different kinds of artwork. Not all art needs to be hung on a wall, and there are so many ways to incorporate art into your house, like a sculptural work on a plinth or a stand. So, yes, less walls do create potentially fewer spots to hang your art. But there’s a lot of ways around it.

How do you nail a salon hang? What should you consider?

Dinan: I always lay everything out on the floor first, it helps me visualise how the wall should look. I even cut out paper versions of each piece and sketch on them so I can play with placement. And I think a good salon hang should be a bit messy. Don’t overmeasure. It should challenge the eye and take you on a journey.

How do you approach size in artworks?

Dinan: People get very hung up on size. You don’t have to fill walls. When you think about a wall like taking a breath, it changes the way you hang art. You can have fast moments where you might do a salon hang or have slow moments where you just put a tiny piece on a big wall.

How do you approach statement art pieces?

Elphinstone: You want it to be one that speaks to you personally, and this comes back to the idea of buying what you love. And don’t be afraid to think about different materials. It doesn’t have to be a painting.

What role does room choice play when buying a piece?

Elphinstone: It’s an important consideration. If you have a high traffic, narrow corridor, the work that you hang on that wall may benefit from being behind glass or being an acrylic on canvas – something that’s a little bit more hardy. And if you have something that’s soft and textural, you might want to hang it in an area where it’s not going to get damaged by daily life.

Dinan: Think about the experience you want in that space. In my beach house bathroom, I have a work by Penelope Davis that’s jellyfish sculptures made from recycled resin, lit with blue lights against glittery silver tiles so it feels like the ocean. It’s about what the room should feel like.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt in relation to buying art for the home in your years of collecting?

Elphinstone: Trust your gut. If you’re drawn to an artwork and you can’t stop thinking about it, that’s what you should buy. Don’t listen to any other noise around you.

Dinan: If you love it, you’ll find the space, you’ll find the money. And don’t be afraid to ask gallerists for help – they really do want to sell the work.

What’s the biggest mistake people make when buying and collecting art for their home?

Elphinstone: Buying art that’s small for the space. A very small work can look quite powerful on a wall, but often people will just go a little bit too small for a space. I think a slightly larger work that really owns as much of the wall as possible is powerful.

And are there any common misconceptions people might have about buying art?

Elphinstone: I think people need to remember there are multiple access points to buying art. You might see an artist in a major museum show and think that they are so out of your league and you’ll never be able to afford them. But often artists create all types of work and they may do a smaller scale work or a work on paper.

A version of this article first appeared in Domain Prestige, in partnership with Broadsheet.