Art in the Home: Stunning Sculptures

Expert advice and helpful tips for how to incorporate their style into interior design for a home…

Art lovers and collectors looking to make a statement and shake up the dynamic of their home design often consider expanding their personal collections to incorporate fine sculptures from contemporary artists. Yet bringing sculpture into the home brings untold challenges, and the medium presents logistical hurdles not typically associated with conventional paintings and the like.

“Sculpture is always the most challenging when acquiring art. Two-dimensional work is easier to send images and visually understand. Three-dimensional pieces almost always need to be seen in person to understand scale, dimension and visual effect,” explained Los Angeles-based interior designer Jamie Bush.

“Sometimes we commission work by a certain artist whom we admire. Other times, it’s a whole process of studio visits, gathering books and articles on a particular artist, or movement and sourcing,” Mr. Bush said. “Research is the key to all our decision making and helping teach our clients to understand the larger whole of how this particular piece of artwork came about. But in the process, we create 3-D models of the piece [to show] where it would go in the house and how it activates the space.”

While noting how his firm does not rely on a singular process or resource from job to job, Mr. Bush’s team will shop at art fairs, source behind the scenes on the secondary market, and work directly with the artists themselves.

“With regard to sculpture, one of the first things I ask clients is how comfortable would they be having an artwork impact how they live their daily lives?” said Jerry Garcia, principal of Olson Kundig, a collaborative global design practice headquartered in Seattle. “Sculpture can be a beautiful object placed on a shelf or something that occupies a premium amount of floor space. It is a sculpture’s ability to liberate itself from the wall where its real potential exists.

“In my own home, I have a large sculpture propped against and completely covering a window, installations on the ceiling, and another that projects several feet from the wall,” said Mr. Garcia, who has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Anish Kapoor, Jaume Plensa and Doug Aitken on both public and private installations. “All enrich my day to day by actively engaging me and how I move through my home.”

As for his clients who have significant and recognizable artwork in their collections, Mr. Bush and his team advise them “to still consider scale, color and proportion in the room being just as important as the maker of the piece, because at the end of the day they still need to be visually correct in the space.”

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