If sophistication and exclusivity is what you’re after in your personal space then hanging your favourite art pieces is the way to go.

Cape Town artist, Andrew Cooper’s right-hand lady, Helena Stuart-Cloete, is an interior decorator with an Advanced Diploma in Interior Design and provides these top 5 expert tips for decorating your home with art.

• Don’t match colours in art pieces to your décor colour, rather look at how busy your room is and choose an artwork that will compliment the space. If you have a lot of busy patterns in your fabrics or colourful painted furniture keep the artwork subdued.
• Collage walls are notoriously tricky to get the scale and proportion correct never mind matching colours of frames and subject matter. You could call in an art installation and picture hanging specialist to help. Otherwise plan your layout by putting all pictures and paintings on the floor. Try to create some form of symmetry (left and right at certain points). It doesn’t have to be exactly symmetrical everywhere, but I find it works well to start in the middle with a biggish piece and build outwards from there.
• Group two or three pictures with similar subject matter or similar frame colours together.
• A large single painting works very well above a bed. Make sure there is enough height to the ceiling and your headboard isn’t too high. I believe a bedroom should be a peaceful sanctuary therefore I suggest the serene and restful subject matter like an Andrew Cooper seascape of Langebaan, Hermanus lagoon or Misty Cliff’s rock pools.
• Lighting is important to illuminate your painting. If you are planning to use down lighters in the ceiling choose the tilting kind to angle onto the wall area with a halogen bulb which will provide maximum coverage (e.g. Osram Titan 60 degrees).
• A promising artist’s work is a good investment. But when it comes to décor, always buy what you love and what speaks to you personally before thinking of how it will look on your wall. In this way, your art will bring you joy for a long time.