9 Expert Tips on How to Create a Gallery Wall of Art at Your Place

I’m so excited to team up with one of my fave art brands today, Desenio, to show you how to create a gallery wall of art at your place. And not only are we delivering you a tonne of dreamy inspiration, but you can enter to win a $500 voucher to spend on their website too. Christmas has come early!

I know that attempting gallery walls can be tricky. There are so many gorgeous examples online, but how do you take those ideas and replicate them on your own walls? And how do you make them look just as divine as the inspo pics? Well, wonder no more, because I’m going to give you some practical tips below.

If you’re already a pro at putting together gallery walls, you can scroll right to the end of the post to enter to win the $500 Desenio voucher. But for the rest of you: prepare to walk away with some real-world tips and advice to make your gallery wall a stunner.

This post is produced in partnership with Desenio. See some of their gallery wall designs here.

First, Decide on a Theme

Every gallery wall has a theme. Or at the very least, a loose theme. Scroll through the images in this post and you’ll see what I mean. The theme might be feminine fashion. It might be minimal chic. It might be inspirational/motivational. It could even be a watercolour story.

Don’t get too bogged down in defining what your theme is (you don’t have to name it), but for cohesions sake it’s worth having all of the artworks in your gallery speak to one another in some way. They can speak through shapes, through style or through colour. As long as they’re talking.

Though they should speak to one another, it’s best to still enjoy variety. For example, you don’t want a six-piece gallery wall to feature six beach photos. More on this further down.

Now Develop a Colour Story

The artworks in this post are all grouped with a colour palette in mind. It’s honestly the easiest way to ensure the gallery wall you create doesn’t look too visually chaotic.

You want to keep your gallery wall to about two or three mains colours. Executing it with restraint on the colour front will keep it feeling sophisticated, which to be fair is what Desenio does best: produce wonderfully modern artworks that feel chic and elegant without even trying!

I’ve seen examples of gallery walls where there are endless colour combinations, but I feel they often get a little overwhelming. Don’t go beyond four tones and you’ll keep it feeling on-point.

Bonus Tip: If you’re struggling with the colour story you want to tell on your gallery wall, examine the look of your room. Take cues from colours in furniture like armchairs, or look to tones in decor like rugs or cushions and replicate those on the wall.

Mix Your Art Mediums

Now, this will come down to a bit of personal preference, and will depend on the theme you’re executing on your gallery wall. But, when I do gallery walls for my design clients I like to mix my mediums.

What I mean by that is that the one gallery wall will be made up of different types of art. Think a piece of quote art, an illustration, some photography, perhaps some numbers in a piece. It makes the gallery wall feel visually rich if you do it this way, as opposed to replicating six or seven quote artworks side-by-side.

And by keeping tip #2 in mind (controlling your colour story) you’ll strike the right balance between the gallery looking interesting but not too intense.

Keep Frame Styles Consistent

It takes a really keen design eye to create a gallery wall with tonnes of different frame styles. My preference (and one that is way easier to get right) is to keep the frame style fairly consistent.

For example, don’t mix a really thick black frame with a really thin gold frame. Don’t mix an elaborate gilded frame with a modern oak frame. It’s too crazy a combination and feels too muddled and confused.

Keeping the frame style (and colour) consistent makes the gallery wall feel more contemporary, which is always my approach with interiors. If you really want to, you can mix colours (like gold and black, or black and white), but it trends to look better if you keep it similar.

Bonus Tip: Don’t stress over matte borders inside the frame. You can happily mix these across your gallery wall artworks. One artwork can feature a white matte border, for example, while another can have none. It looks great!

Embrace Different Sized Frames

Creating a perfect nine-grid gallery wall where all the frames are the same size is an approach I tend to reserve for family photos, not artworks. You can see what I mean in my Melbourne CBD project here. When it comes to creating a gallery wall of frames, mixing the sizes is one of my top recommendations.

If you had 10 framed pieces of art in your gallery wall, I would vary the frame sizes so you have four of one size, three of another size, and three of another. You don’t want every single frame to be a different size or it can look a bit thrown together.

Bonus Tip: If you have two frames the same size, try keeping one in portrait orientation and turning the other one landscape. There are so many images here from Desenio where this is done and it looks stellar.

Space Them Out Correctly

This one is a little ‘choose your own adventure’ because every wall is different and every gallery wall look is quite personal. But there are a few guidelines I like to follow when I’m trying to figure out exactly where each piece of art will go.

The biggest blunder I see clients make is art placed too close together on a gallery wall. It’s nice to leave about 10 to 15cm between each piece. You want to give them room to breathe. You want to appreciate each individual artwork, but get that they’re part of an ensemble.

I also prefer a sense of random placement when hanging art in a gallery wall formation. It makes the space feel more approachable, but it’s also much easier to do on your own. Trying to perfectly line up 10 frames with a hammer, hook and spirit level can be tricky, so I’d suggest you embrace the random placement and make life a lot easier!

Lay Them Out Before you Hang

I do this all the time with clients of mine when creating gallery walls of art. I also do it when installing photos as well.

Before you bring out the hammer and hook, take all of your artworks and put them on the floor. This is where you’ll start to play with where each piece works best. Move them around a lot and a configuration will start to take shape – trust me!

For best results I like to ensure there’s variety in the art sitting directly next to each other. For example, if you have two pieces of quote art, don’t hang them right next to one another; break them up with a photograph or illustration instead.

Try a Leaner Gallery Wall Too

This is a good option for renters who don’t want to nail into the wall, but also for rooms where you might not want a lot of art dominating the wall. The image above is a glorious example of a few pieces from Desenio resting beautifully on a sideboard, and they’re impactful enough just as they are.

Notice how the three pieces follow so many of the rules mentioned above? They mix mediums, the colour palette is restrained, there’s a distinct theme going on, the frames are of a similar profile and they’re different sizes. This configuration ticks all the boxes.

Bonus Tip: If you already have some existing photos at home, work them into a scene like this. It’s nice to have a personal touch in your gallery wall, so don’t be afraid to mix some glorious new Desenio pieces with some of your treasured possessions.

Consider the Paint Colour Behind the Art

You know I’ve long been on a mission to banish white walls from the rooms of homes, so it’ll come as no surprise that I recommend you try painting a feature wall behind your gallery of artworks.

That’s not to say that your artworks won’t look delicious on a crisp white wall, because they will. But just look at all the moody paint colours splashed across the walls of the images in this post. If you ask me, they make the artworks shine even more.

Plus, it also allows you to develop a colour story within the art pieces if you draw inspiration from the paint colour you’ve used on the wall. Just sayin’.

Win a $500 Voucher to Spend on Art from Desenio

PLEASE NOTE THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED. THE WINNER WAS CLARE FLEMING.

The team at Desenio have been kind enough to offer up a $500 voucher for you to spend on any art you like from their website. Just follow the prompts below to enter.

To enter the draw to win the $500 voucher, simply:

• Click here to explore art on the Denenio website
• Come back to this blog post and drop a comment below
• In your comment, name some of your fave Desenio prints and why
• (You’ll need to scroll right to the bottom to submit a comment)

Competition is open to Australian residents only. Competition closes 11.59pm Friday February 12. Winner will be announced here and notified via email.