How to choose art for your home

I get asked this a lot, so here's the actual approach I use. It comes down to three decisions, and it'll save you from buying something you're tired of in two years.

Start with your furniture

Before you look at a single piece of art, look at what's already in the room.

If your furniture is loud (bold colors, statement upholstery, a lot going on visually), go with more minimalist art. The room is already telling a story and the art shouldn't argue with it.

If your furniture is minimalist (neutral, clean lines, restrained), you actually have two options. You can keep the same quiet energy with minimalist art, or you can go big with a real statement piece. A minimalist room can hold a lot of personality on the wall.

You always have more options when your furniture is more minimal. That's why I personally keep the big, expensive pieces neutral: the couch, the rug, the dining table. Then I let art and pillows and other accents carry the personality. You get pops of color where you want them, and when your taste shifts in a few years, you can swap accents without redoing the whole room.

Art as accent, or art as the start

For most people, treating art as the accent layer is the right move. Big foundational pieces like couches, rugs, and dining tables are expensive and hard to change. Art, you can rotate. You can add to a collection. You can change a whole wall in an afternoon. So if you already have your furniture, the easiest path is to keep those foundational pieces neutral and let art carry the personality.

Here's the other side though. If you're truly starting from scratch, like a brand new house or a room with nothing in it yet, buying a statement piece of art first and designing around it is a completely valid play. It doesn't even have to be loud. A piece you genuinely love can set the palette, the mood, and the direction for the whole space. In that case the art becomes the anchor instead of the accent.

The mistake is treating art like the last thing on the checklist no matter what. Sometimes it's the first thing.

Don't buy what your neighbor already has

I'll just say it. Live, laugh, love prints. The mass-produced "abstract" stuff from Target and the like. That's the biggest mistake I see.

You walk into a home and you can tell immediately when the art was an afterthought. There's no personality, nothing original, and odds are good that ten other people in the same neighborhood have the same piece on their wall. That's not a home that reflects you. That's a catalog page.

The other version of this mistake is buying what's trendy right now. Trends have a shelf life of about ten years. The art you actually love has no shelf life. That's the whole point.

So take a small risk. Pick something that feels like a slight stretch. Buy from a real artist whose name you can google. Get something with a story behind it.

And then trust your gut

I don't think there's one specific thing about my own work that helps people pick the right piece, and honestly, that's true of any artist's work. Art speaks to you, or it doesn't. Once you've done the practical work (matched the energy of the room, decided where art fits in your layering, skipped the cookie-cutter trap), the rest is just paying attention to what you keep coming back to.

If you find yourself stopping in front of a painting and not quite scrolling away, that's probably the one. Don't overthink it.

If you want help picking something for a specific room, send me a photo and I'll suggest a few pieces from the studio. Or browse originals here.