If you’ve been tracking with me for awhile, you will have noticed two things: ONE, I love original art and I work with it as much as I can when designing interiors. TWO, I love working with one Toronto gallery in particular: Art Interiors.

I’ve worked with owners Lisa Diamond Katz and Shira Wood for years now, curating and adding pieces to my clients’ collections from Art Interiors‘ beautifully edited gallery. With a vision for creating a gallery that invites people to break down the typical boundaries to buying original art, Lisa and Shira continue to offer affordable pieces in a warm and engaging environment that takes the edge off of what you might expect from an art buying experience. No pretense. Lots of warmth, humour, beauty and creativity. And pieces starting at $50.

I recently stopped in to collaborate with the lovely and sophisticated Shira to show you how you can create larger, anchoring groupings with “smalls.”

Painting seen behind Shira is by Madeleine Lamont

For our first grouping, Shira and I chose this beautiful figurative 16″ x 16″ piece by Elizabeth Lennie entitled “Beach Life” as our starting point. I love this Canadian artist’s work as she captures scenes that were foundational to some of my favourite childhood memories of growing up in Canada and enjoying the outdoors.

Next, we chose 2 complimentary pieces. The first, entitled “Sonic Boom” by Aaron Jones, is a 12″ x 18″ mixed media piece that connects to the treed landscape on the horizon of Lennie’s beach scene as well as the blush coloured palette of the sand. The second – a much more contemporary 8″ x 8″ piece by Dionne Simpson – draws upon the colour palette while lending a decidedly modern edge to the grouping.

This grouping would work very well on its own, but we wanted to show you how you could build your collection over time. The next piece to catch my eye was this whimsical and quirky piece entitled “Ram” by Amy Thompson.

I love the vintage charm of the artist’s chosen canvas – an old library card.

We also selected two contemporary abstract smalls by Emilie Rondeau – “Champs Fleuri” and “Celeste.” Both only 6″ x 6″, it is the bold and dynamic colour palette of these two pieces that adds a definite joie de vivre to our grouping. I also love the way the chartreuse green of the grass in “Ram” is echoed in the Rondeau pieces along with the shades of blush that pull from our first three pieces in this collection.

Again, I would be quite happy to call this grouping complete, but for the sake showing how a grouping can be curated over time, we selected one last piece to show you. This 8″ x 10″ is actually a part of a triptych entitled “Round Lake Series” by Rojia Dadashzadeh, and I think it does a lovely job of balancing the abstract elements with the more literal in our collection. Again, it also connects with the blush colour palette along with the two black frames and the dark horizon of the beach scene.

Overall this grouping gives the eye much to consider with a gentle wander while offering many points of harmony to make sense of the collection being grouped together. 

Curating your own groupings of smalls should be a creative adventure! Start with what you love. Look for connections between the pieces that draw you in. Often you’ll find that there are commonalities in colour palette, texture, subject matter, line and form or just mood. Pulling unexpected pieces together that speak to you can create the kind of interesting and engaging grouping that uniquely reflects your personality in your space.

I would strongly encourage you to pop into Art Interiors soon to see what inspires you! The ladies are the loveliest and always ready to help you discover your own tastes in art. The art they have curated is as varied as the audience for which it is intended. There truly is something there for every taste and budget. Can’t wait to hear about your fabulous finds!

xo

s.