Buying art for your apartment

So, you bought your brand new apartment, but there’s something missing – the walls are bare. You could head to somewhere like IKEA and purchase a print or reproduction, but wouldn’t it be great to own an original piece of art?

Buying original art for your apartment is not as difficult as you might think. Assuming you’re buying for decorative purposes and not as an investment (though there’s no reason the same rules wouldn’t apply), just follow these simple tips and you’ll be hanging your own home gallery before you know it.

Choose a theme

If you’re only going to buy a couple of pieces of art, a great way to ensure you have a coherent feel throughout your apartment is to stick to a theme. For you, this may be landscapes. It might be abstracts – a popular choice currently – or it might be cityscapes, for example.

You might equally choose to buy paintings of a similar colour or combination of colours. Whilst buying art for its colour rather than its composition might have artists shaking their heads, the truth is many of us ‘use’ art as a way of simply adding colour to an otherwise bland room, and abstracts are particularly effective at this.

Buy from local artists

You’d be surprised how many artists live near you and have a studio full of pieces they’d love to sell to you. Ask around or search online for artists in your area, find a couple whose work you like the look of and pay them a visit.

Buying from a local artist is a great way to get art at a great value price, plus you’re supporting your local artistic community. Who knows, maybe you’ll hit upon an upcoming art star and bag yourself a future masterpiece.

Go for a big statement piece

If you want a big bang for your buck, you might want to purchase one huge statement piece.

Something big and bold will define and dominate a space, and the simplicity of a single piece can actually make a room look bigger.

Choose wisely, though. Blowing your budget on something and then realising it’s too big or not the perfect match for other objects in the room will leave you with a headache. Buyers have been known to hang up patchwork colour copies of pieces for a week or two to get used to them before committing.

But get that giant statement piece right and it can lift your apartment to a whole new level.

Hang a collage
If a picture paints a thousand words, imagine what ten pictures could say. This is a common technique and means you can hedge your bets across a number of paintings, with the overall effect being greater than the sum of the individual pieces.

Having a cluster of paintings adds more of a sense of homeliness to a space and, depending on how you arrange them, can add either a formal or informal vibe to a room.

Another benefit is you can regularly swap your pieces around to different positions – a great way to appreciate them again.

Buy what you like

Above all else, the most important rule when buying art is to buy something you like. You’re the one who’ll be looking at it every day, you may as well like the look of it. Take the time to do your research, get to know what you like, find pieces you want to spend time with and go for it.

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