Ferris Wheel Through Time and Space, 2023
Jesse Meserve
TAG The Art Gallery
While the days of COVID-19 lockdowns are behind us, remote work has become a fixture of many jobs. As people find themselves working from home, they are paying greater attention to their home offices, brightening and refreshing domestic spots to suit their professional needs and personal taste.
“The demand for artworks for home offices has increased, driven by the need to make offices more soulful or simply more entertaining during video calls,” Jane Corkin, founder of Corkin Gallery, told Artsy. “They are looking for works that empower and invigorate. We are seeing bold choices and deeper works that bring a layer of introspection rather than mere decoration.”
Whether you’re buying art for the first time or expanding your collection, here are tips from leading galleries and designers on purchasing art that fits into your home working setup seamlessly.
Start with the room, not the art
Happy Place #9, 2021
Leslie Kerby
FROSCH&CO
Like any form of purchasing art, deciding what to buy for your workspace requires consideration about where and how you want the art to live.
In addition to being heavily used rooms, home offices have to be practical and fit the needs of your job. It’s important to think first about the room and how you use it, assessing the physical constraints—size, layout of furniture, and things like the dominant light source and its direction. North-facing rooms tend to have cooler and more even light, while south-facing rooms are warm and shift through the day. This can change how an artwork appears and create glare, depending on how you frame it.
“If a home office gets a lot of natural light, works behind glass—such as photography, drawings, or works on paper—can create reflections that become distracting during the workday, even if they’re barely noticeable in the evening,” said Sarah Sargeant, founder and principal at the New York–based firm Cochineal Design. “It’s worth thinking about the room’s lighting conditions before deciding on framing or medium so the artwork can be enjoyed comfortably throughout the day.”
Red Yellow Black White (from Standing People), 2020
Julian Opie
Robin Rile Fine Art
The overall palette and material feel of the room is also important to consider. A dark space with warm surfaces like leather will need different artworks than a minimal setup with white walls. While your workspace may have specific needs, it’s still a part of your home.
“I think an office should feel like a natural extension of the rest of the home, rather than a space with an entirely different look and feel,” Sargeant added. “I always prefer to propose artwork that complements a home's broader collection and design story. That said, every client is different.”
What artworks tend to work for home offices, and why
Still In The Game , 2022
Yoon Hyup
APC Gallery
Yo Ho Ho , 2008
Todd James
aous
Once you’ve understood the requirements of your space, you can start to think about what will work for your home office. For many people, the wall behind a desk is the best place to hang artwork. Some might find it better to have a single piece proportioned to their room and furniture, but what works for one person might not be best for another.
In his own home office, Mohamed Benhadj, director and curator of Al-Tiba9 Gallery, has a variety of pieces, including a sculpture, photograph, and a neon installation. “I enjoy living with different materials and different artistic languages throughout the day,” he said. “The neon wall installation offers me a new atmosphere at night and keeps me inspired. I always encourage collectors to be creative in their choices and not limit themselves to a single artwork or a single medium.”
Indeed, when you spend hours in the same room, it’s important to think about how you’d like to feel in the morning as well as after a long day of work.
You may have to be flexible as you start to live with your artwork. “We’ve worked with collectors who relocate works from living and dining rooms into their home offices because they realize those are the pieces they want to spend the most time with,” said Emily Siekkinen, director of Octavia Art Gallery.
I Love Liberty, 1982
Roy Lichtenstein
Robin Rile Fine Art
In terms of cost, works on paper, prints, and photography can be more accessible and are easier to hang and move around as you decide on an arrangement.
“A home office is a smaller and more intimate space, and prints tend to work beautifully at that scale—they don’t overwhelm the room the way a large unique painting might, and they let you live with a serious artist’s work without needing museum-sized walls,” said Elisabetta Setzu, senior director of print specialist Gemini G.E.L. “There’s also something appropriate about prints for a workspace: They represent the artist’s hand and process in a very direct way.”
“We’re seeing strong interest in artists whose prints reward close, sustained looking,” added Setzu. “Vija Celmins’s drypoints, Richard Tuttle’s hand-drawn works, and Ed Ruscha’s word-based prints all come up often for home offices specifically, since they're contemplative rather than purely decorative.”
Size, placement, and the video call factor
My Desktop 我的書桌, 2018
Guanyu Xu
Galerie du Monde
Ultimately, the artwork you choose needs to suit your profession. If your office blurs the public-private boundary and you have visitors or are often on video calls, you might have to be more deliberate about what you hang on your walls.
“A therapist, for instance, may want to create a space that feels welcoming, calming, and conducive to vulnerability,” Rachel Vincent-Clarke, director of Galerie Robertson Arès, said. “An entrepreneur might choose works that embody the values, creativity, or visual identity of their business.”
Dealers also suggest artwork that rewards slow viewing, given the amount of time you will spend with it. “One of our collectors shared a photograph of a recent acquisition from our gallery, newly installed in her home office: a subtly hued embroidery on raw canvas by Montreal-based textile artist Cyndie Belhumeur,” Vincent-Clarke added. “The work explores our relationship with the digital world, reflecting on the overwhelming flow of information that surrounds us while reminding us of our capacity to pause, step back, and recalibrate. I think that’s a particularly resonant theme for a home office.”
Practically speaking for video callers, your camera position should be considered when judging where to hang something behind you. If a work is too large, it might not translate well through a screen.
Common mistakes
Westie at Work, 2026
Scott Reeder
Saenger Galería
While keeping these more practical tips in mind can help you choose the best artwork for your home office, there are additional caveats. People can spend hours on end in their workspace, so dealers caution against buying something you think will look good, but isn’t what you really want.
“Only purchase artwork that you’ll want to live with, not just look at occasionally,” said Siekkinen. “A home office is one of the few places where you engage with the same artwork every day, so choosing something that will continue to hold your interest is important.”
Still, a piece should be interesting without being diverting. An eye-catching work could be a good conversation starter or could become a distraction. People who give group presentations might find it challenging to keep their audience’s attention.
Moreover, what’s hanging on the walls might become a distraction to you. “An artwork that makes you feel motivated to work is very different from one that constantly makes you dream about going on holiday or taking a day off,” noted Benhadj.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/kYV3LDj
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