How to Choose the Right New Year Gifts and What to Do with Yours Afterwards?
A Painting as the Best Answer to a Pressing December Question
Very often, choosing a gift is a headache. For the giver and, oddly enough, for the recipient as well. Some wrestle with how “needed” the gift really is. Others later find themselves in an awkward spot: what on earth to do with a gift that is “so beautiful and so necessary”? We asked architect, designer, and head of the architectural studio “AR-KA,” Ilona Boleyshits, to reflect on these questions.
I believe that choosing a painting as a gift is one of the most successful compromises. What’s more, it can be quite affordable. (see for yourself: https://kvartiras.com/catalogue/walking/ — ed.). And if not quite so affordable, then the idea of a “joint gift” fits here perfectly. All sensible people can unite around a single noble purpose.
There is a strong chance that those sensible people will fail to agree on the artistic side of the work and on the right place to hang it. But there is a way out here too!
One must prepare in advance: slip into the territory of the gift’s recipient and reconnoitre the scene. It would be good to take a discreet photo of where the painting is meant to hang. And it would also help to learn the recipient’s artistic tastes. So as not to miss the mark completely. And then, with the help of a decorator or an art consultant, one can find the most advantageous place and settle on style and size.
To model a situation of this kind, I selected several photographs of our interiors and imagined how they might be transformed if we chose paintings for them now.
In each version we selected the necessary size and style based on wall area, the scale of the surroundings, and the owner’s character.
And more often than not it turns out that introducing a painting into an interior sets a new melody for the entire room. Especially if one is not afraid and does not choose from neutral “landscape and still-life” subjects. It is wonderful when an artist has a distinctive hand of their own. Then they become a co-author of the whole interior, giving it a new sound and direction.
Architect, designer
Head of the architectural studio “AR-KA”