Be bold with murals
If you are looking for a way to spruce up an interior that’s budgetfriendly, noncommittal and DIY, look no further then a mural, writes Bridie Chetwin-Kelly.
As home owners become bolder with the interior design choices they make so do the commitments they make to their walls. Gone are the days of feature walls and wallpaper. In life imitating art, murals have become a popular feature for walls in homes everywhere. Homeowner Mary Campbell, whose house recently featured in NZ House & Garden made that commitment to the entrance way at her Lake Tarawera house. As guests enter the house they are greeted by a 4-metre high mural spraypainted by Auckland based muralist Flox. Using pinks, greens, blues and yellows, the mural captures and highlights the natural surroundings of the area.
Flox says murals that pack a bit of punch can be a great addition to any home. ‘‘They are gutsy in my mind, as they reflect a sense of passion and confidence in a room – and the owner. As they are straight on the wall, as opposed to something you hang, murals can add something that is fully integral to a space.’’
If you’re working to budget restrictions you can always take a page out of interior designer Evie Kemp’s book and paint a mural yourself. Using the phone app ProCreate, which she downloaded for a oneoff cost of $30, she took a photo of her David
Bowie-themed lounge and, using the app, drew on what she thought would look good in the space. ‘‘Painting lines used such little paint; I just ordered the test pot colours from Dulux and painted it free-hand.’’ Kemp says it’s important not to sweat the imperfections and embrace the organic nature of painting. ‘‘No one is going to look at it up close anyway.’’ Her creative move paid off, winning best living room in last year’s NZ House and Garden Interior of the Year awards.
Muralist and interior designer Alex Fulton began with smaller contemporary art pieces but now the Christchurch-based artist is filling a gap with bigger commissioned pieces. ‘‘The idea to scale my compositions of colour and form felt like a natural progression and it turned out that the bigger, the better. Making my creative images into larger works was a mega moment that worked. Christchurch is ready for large art. We already knew that since the earthquakes as we have spaces to fill.’’
Of course, it is not just home owners who have caught on to the trend; restaurants
look to add a contemporary feel to their de´ cor as well. Artist Serval Fandango, among other work, was commissioned to complete murals for Auckland restaurants such as Kiss Kiss Eatery and Love Explosion. He is inspired by the impact of colours and the manifestation of personalities and he hopes his work can spark curiosity.
Stylist and art director Amber Armitage says murals are a fun way to introduce colour and texture into a room as well as show off your own personal colour palette. When choosing a mural, she recommends thinking about scale and furniture and how it expresses personal style.
‘‘Murals are great because they are unique and hand made. They can be adapted to the colours that you like, created at the correct scale for the space and overall are a more bespoke option to add colour and texture to your interior. If you are creating your own mural or having an artist create it for you, you will have a one-off artwork on your walls that no-one else will have.’’
After all, it’s only paint and you can always paint over it.