Professional Chat: Infuse Your Kitchen With Art

I live in a little flat with a great deal of artwork, so my entire living room has turned into a sort of well-curated (I trust) gallery. It’s therefore not a surprise that I prefer to consider kitchen partitions as an perfect spot to showcase intriguing works of art. Below are some designers who appear to concur with my own philosophy.

Andre Rothblatt Architecture

Fill in the blanks. “My customers have a large and eclectic art collection, and that I selected this piece from the other room in their house for its color, content and mild wood frame. I felt it actually shines the kitchen,” explains Andre Rothblatt of Andre Rothblatt Architecture.

“Another design decision I made was not to place cabinets on both sides of the exhaust hood. I wanted to inject some negative distance there and offer more prominence and visual attention to the stove. So it followed that artwork ought to be hung on those purposefully blank walls”

The Sky is the Limit Style

Use artwork as your inspiration. This oil painting by artist Barbra Edwards was the first inspiration for the colors and textures across the kitchen in her house. “The house is on a little island in British Columbia overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and it’s surrounded by evergreens and arbutus trees,” says Ines Hanl of The Sky is the Limit Design.

“When we selected the stuff, I was really mindful of her favorite color scheme: golds and browns, with flecks of moss. Rift-cut oak stained in 3 distinct earthy hues was used for an assortment of cabinetry, which is offset by a lacquered soft gray-green specialty cabinet. The custom-made concrete bar relates to the mountains and rocks outside, as does the oyster slate we utilized on the ground.”

Andre laurent

Add heat to a room. With this all-white kitchen, “we chose the artwork to bring some well-deserved colour into the design,” says Andre Laurent, of Creative Space Architectural Design in New Zealand. “The 3 pieces break up the image into a more interesting format”

Aidan Design

Complement the design. “This distance was designed to permit for artwork, and we needed something that was a singular piece, says Nadia N. Subaran of Aidan Design. “The palette to your home’s pool kitchen was motivated by the exterior stone, and also we needed the transition from outside to inside to be as easy as possible.

When I saw the painting of this horse, I knew it was fantastic. I loved the scale, texture, colors as well as the fact that it’s unframed. It brings a simplicity to the piece that operates with the kitchen modern and minimal specifics”

Du Bois Design Ltd

Add interest and flexibility. “I find bringing in bright artwork is a simple and effective method to add interest to some neutral colour scheme,” says Natalie Du Bois of Du Bois Design. “It affords a degree of flexibility not possible with another more permanent and fixed elements in a kitchen. A painting may quite easily be swapped out from time to time to give the kitchen a completely different appearance. I noticed this particular work elsewhere in the house and thought it would be a wonderful way to introduce some additional warmth and colour to the kitchen.”

Du Bois Design Ltd

Inspire your cooking. This is another kitchen designed by Natalie Du Bois. “Because of the central position of the slim, elongated island, we had a large white wall for hanging artwork,” she states. “It serves as a perfect canvas for this striking piece that produces a bold background for the owners to enjoy whether they’re preparing meals.”

Smith & Vansant Architects PC

Juxtapose modern and traditional elements. “The kitchen in this house doubles as the dining room, so we made a deliberate effort to downplay the kitchen aspects of the room,” explains Pi Smith of Smith & Vansant Architects. “You will find not any upper cabinets, plenty of windows, and storage has been handled with a built-in hutch that’s tucked away under the stairs.

The artwork reflects my customer’s diverse collection of works. I don’t believe she viewed the kitchen as needing to be handled in a special manner. Instead she selected pieces she enjoyed and wanted to live with this both fit the available space and added a rich, modern counterpoint to the charm and historical quality of the building. Her artwork and lighting choices, specifically, speak to how this endeavor isn’t locked in time, but very much a product of modern life.”

Joan Heaton Architects

Showcase neighborhood artists. This Vermont cabin owned and designed by Joan Heaton of Joan Heaton Architects previously belonged to artist Janet Chill. “I thought it fitting to showcase her artwork,” says Heaton. “The painting, oil on oaktag, depicts a closeup of hosta and other plants. I thought that the flat element, colors and scale of the job looked great from the kitchen”

Kitchens & Baths, Linda Burkhardt

Reference your environment. “My customer truly loves artwork, and over the years he has acquired a significant selection of great pieces,” says kitchen and bathroom designer Linda Burkhardt. “I love this original serigraph, “Driftwood,” by Nicola Simbari and thought its positioning was a perfect complement to this gorgeous beachfront kitchen”

Kitchen Designs by Ken Kelly, Inc. (CKD, CBD, CR)

Don’t forget the ceiling. Before being remodeled with Ken Kelly of Kitchen Designs by Ken Kelly, this kitchen features a vaulted cathedral ceiling with industrial-looking track lighting. Kelly made the space cozier by converting the vault to a horizontal 9-foot ceiling with a tray design within the island to boost the elevation and add volume to the room. The ceiling mural is hand-painted and “captures the family’s personality, creative spirit, and their love of peacock feathers” says Kelly.

“The room’s other details include a mosaic tile floor and backsplash comprising 22 distinct colors,” he adds. “The pattern made a quilted-rug effect in the glass tile floor. For the backsplash by the stove, we added colour and feel with bubble glass and ceramic tile using recycled bottle caps, buttons, beads and broken pieces of china”

Browse thousands of art prints from the Products section

More:
10 Design Strategies for Art Lovers

See related