Rightly or wrongly, I often cringe a bit when I hear or see the term ‘wall art’… It’s a ubiquitous but kind-of confused term, often used by someone when they don’t quite know what to describe something as – usually something decorative that goes on a wall, but they don’t know (or care) enough to term it a painting, a print, wall-based sculpture, textile hanging, adhesive wall decals, ceramic plaque, or something else. The object might be mass-produced and chain-store sold, or be vintage, antique, artisan-made, artist-made…
The cringe really isn’t a snobbish thing – we all enjoy pretty things that go on walls. It’s more that I feel bad that as a society, we seem to collectively lack the (agreed) terminology these days… Have key scatter-gun key words and search terms coloured our modern understanding of what a ‘painting’ or ‘print’ is? Perhaps people don’t want to think too deeply into it? Which gives me an uneasy feeling that we are maybe devaluing the skill and effort someone has put into that object, or the history behind it. Even a mass-produced sticker is the careful work of a skilled (but perhaps nameless) designer. Are we falling into consumer traps of not really caring? What do you think?
I guess this literally is ‘wall art’ though…
A while back we agreed to decorate my two tween daughters bedroom (it hadn’t really had a spruced-up since my son’s toddler days). After agreeing some colours with them, I took to attacking one of the walls (as a feature wall) with spray paints in a kind of oversimplified version of one of the ways work with spray paints when working on landscape or abstract paintings, spraying colour through vintage textiles to create layered patterns and texture.
It took a few days to complete (of course, when working with aerosols up ladders, safety dictates regular breaks (your respiration mask gets sticky and heavy on your face anyway, and there needed to be long periods of ventilating the room thoroughly between sessions), but I’m really pleased with the results.
Unfortunately my (then) 8 year old’s (almost) first reaction was ‘OK, can we paint it black now?’ – kids eh?
I also decorated a little wood vintage coffee table for them…
