Wall art trends worth putting on your wall

Welcome to my blog, I am a professional cartoonist, illustrator, artist and writer. My site here is intended to promote a range of works that I think will look good on the wall. Included on my site is not just my own work, but some works by other artists whose work I love and hope to bring to a wider audience. I hope you enjoy your tour of my site and welcome any feedback. Prints are fulfilled by The Print Space for prints on paper, they are one of the UK's premier fine art print companies, and there is also the option of buying some images printed onto canvas, these are fulfilled by Printumo. All prints are available worldwide. When looking at wall art trends UK buyers are responding to, I think the strongest choice is still a picture with personality, good composition and something to say.

Wall art trends UK homes are actually living with

The best wall art is not really about chasing a trend. It is about finding an image that holds your attention after the first week, then keeps earning its place every time you walk into the room. A fashionable colour can date quickly. A strong drawing, photograph or landscape tends to settle in and become part of the house.

There is a clear move away from anonymous, mass-produced decoration. People are looking for work that feels observed rather than manufactured: an odd little building seen in the right light, a broad landscape with weather in it, a crisp black and white drawing, or an urban detail that would normally be passed without a second glance. These are pictures that give a room some atmosphere without needing a lengthy explanation.

For homeowners and renters alike, that is useful. A large print can set the tone in a sitting room, while a smaller piece can bring life to a hallway, study or the space above a bedside table. The scale matters, but the image matters more. A wall does not need filling. It needs something worth looking at.

Texture, weather and the appeal of the overlooked

One of the more interesting wall art trends in the UK is a renewed fondness for texture. Not fake distressed effects, but the real thing: rust, peeling paint, timber, corrugated iron, old brick and the accidental shapes made by years of weather. These surfaces have their own visual language. They can be quiet, slightly scruffy and absolutely beautiful.

I have always had a penchant for old industrial buildings, sheds, corrugated iron and industrial metalwork. A shed is rarely designed to impress anybody, which is partly why it can make such a good subject. Its shape is practical, its materials are honest, and time leaves a mark on it. The same applies to riverside structures, worn doors and the makeshift details found around old working sites.

The River Severn has provided plenty of this sort of inspiration. Its banks and nearby industrial corners contain an appealing mix of landscape, weather and human activity. The Gloucestershire countryside is equally important to the work, not as a postcard version of rural life, but as a place of fields, changing skies, hedges, barns and buildings that have properly belonged there for years.

A picture with this kind of texture works especially well in a clean, modern room. The contrast stops the interior feeling too polished. In a more traditional home, it can feel naturally at ease. That is the advantage of a subject with real character: it does not need to match everything exactly.

Charcoal brings a different kind of depth

New charcoal drawing images have recently been added, alongside new photographs. Charcoal has a directness that suits buildings, trees and landscape particularly well. It can be bold and dark, but it also has a lovely range of soft greys, rubbed marks and open space.

For a wall that needs something quieter than a bright colour print, a charcoal drawing can be a very good answer. It gives you texture and presence without shouting. Black and white work is often easier to place than people imagine, particularly where a room already has plenty of colour in rugs, books or furniture.

Big signs, bright sun and Los Angeles street scenes

At the other end of the visual scale are the photographs of large advertising signs in the Los Angeles area. There is something brilliant about these oversized bits of commercial architecture: the scale, the lettering, the hard sunshine and the way a sign can tower above an ordinary street. They are graphic without being tidy, and full of the odd optimism that Los Angeles does so well.

These images are available as photographic prints as well as canvas prints. The choice depends on the room and the effect you want. A fine art paper print has a clean, considered quality and suits a framed presentation beautifully. Canvas has more physical presence and can be particularly effective with a large sign or street scene, where the image benefits from feeling substantial across a bigger wall.

Canvas is not automatically the right answer for every picture. A detailed charcoal piece or a finely observed photograph may be better on paper, where the surface keeps the image crisp. A larger, bolder subject can take canvas very well. It is worth choosing the format to suit the picture rather than treating one as more prestigious than the other.

Choose art with a point of view

A good wall art trend is really just evidence that people want more character in their rooms. That character can come from a rural scene, a lino cut, an illustration, a black and white drawing or a photograph of a sign that is too large and too strange to ignore. What matters is that somebody has made a decision about what is worth noticing.

This is where an artist-led collection has an advantage over a catalogue of endlessly similar images. The selection can have a point of view. It can include subjects that are unfashionable in the best possible way, as well as images that make immediate sense in a contemporary interior. Work by guest artists is chosen because it has something individual about it, not because it fills a category.

There are also new, exciting works by Steve Parker in the collection. His work brings another visual voice into the mix, which is part of the pleasure of showing artists whose work I genuinely admire. A wall looks better when the art on it has been chosen with some feeling behind it.

Make the wall feel intentional

If you are choosing one larger picture, give it enough breathing space. Trying to surround it with lots of smaller pieces can weaken the effect unless you are deliberately building a gallery wall. For a single statement work, a plain stretch of wall is often its best friend.

A pair of related prints can work well above a sofa or sideboard, especially if one carries colour and the other offers a calmer counterpoint. In tighter spaces, one small but distinctive image is usually more convincing than several filler pieces. Let the subject do the work.

None of the works are limited editions. That means the decision can be based on what you genuinely want to live with, rather than a rush to buy something because it may disappear. The important thing is to choose a print you will still enjoy when the room changes around it. Good art has a habit of travelling well from one wall to the next.