How to Choose Abstract Art for Your Living Room
Your living room is where your life happens — morning light, long conversations, quiet evenings. The art on its walls sets the energy for all of it. As an artist working in Malibu, these are the questions collectors ask me most, and the simple way I answer them.
1. Start with the feeling, not the furniture
Most people try to "match" a painting to their sofa. I suggest the opposite: decide how you want the room to feel. This is also the heart of feng shui: a room holds energy — chi — and everything in it either helps that energy flow or blocks it. A painting is never just decoration; it's an energy you choose to live with every day.
Calm and spacious? Look for soft fields of color and breathing room in the composition, like my Light Bath, a 60″×48″ original made of light and stillness. Warm and alive? Go bold — a piece like Blessings (36″×36″, deep blossom reds) changes the temperature of a whole room.
Abstract art is honest that way: it doesn't depict a thing, it carries a frequency. Choose the frequency first.
2. Get the size right
A few simple rules that work:
- Above a sofa, art should span roughly two-thirds of the sofa's width. For most sofas that's a 36″–60″ piece.
- Hang the center of the piece at about eye level (57–60 inches from the floor) — lower than most people first try.
- One generous painting almost always works better than several small ones competing. If you fall for small pieces, group them intentionally as a pair or trio.
If you're unsure, tape the painting's outline on the wall with painter's tape and live with it for a day. Your eye will tell you the truth.
3. Let color lead — or let it rest
Two approaches both work:
- Echo: pull one or two colors from the painting into cushions, a throw, or a rug. My ocean-blue Blue Pearl (30″×30″) does this beautifully in coastal and neutral rooms.
- Rest: in a colorful room, a charcoal drawing gives the eye a place to land. Original drawings are also the most affordable way to own real art — my charcoal drawings start at $421.
4. Original art vs. prints
A print decorates; an original inhabits. You can see the hand in it — the layers, the pigment sitting on the canvas, the decision the artist made at 2 a.m. Originals are one of a kind: when a piece sells, it's gone. They also hold a story you can tell, and value that a reproduction never will. If budget is the question, start small and real: I make mini paintings from $95 — genuine originals at 5″×7″ that are perfect for a shelf, desk, or your first collected piece.
5. Place it with feng shui in mind
A few gentle feng shui principles I paint and live by:
- Color is element. In feng shui, colors carry the five elements: reds and oranges are fire — passion, visibility, joy (beautiful for a living room that feels too quiet). Blues are water — calm, flow, depth; a blue piece like Blue Pearl softens a busy household. Earth tones ground a space that feels scattered; greens bring wood energy — growth and renewal.
- The entry sets the tone. The first thing seen when the door opens shapes the energy entering your home. Choose something uplifting there — art that makes you exhale and smile.
- Above the sofa, choose lightness. A painting over where you sit and sleep should feel like support, not weight — open compositions, rising movement, nothing stormy hanging over your head.
- Love lives in pairs. For the relationship corner of a home (the far-right corner from the door, in traditional bagua), pieces about union carry the right intention — it's why I painted Twin Flames.
You don't need to be a feng shui master. Just stand in the doorway, look at your wall, and ask: does the energy rise here, or does it sink? Your body already knows.
6. Trust the pull
Finally, the least technical and most important advice I have: notice which painting you keep coming back to. Collectors tell me the right piece feels less like a purchase and more like a recognition. My own compass, in art and in life, is simple — it's all Love, and love is all. Choose the piece that feels like love to you, and it will never clash with your room.
Ready to look? Browse original paintings and original drawings — every piece is one of a kind and ships from Malibu, California. Questions about a specific piece, sizing, or framing? Ask me directly — I read everything myself.
— ArtiR 💟
