Birmingham based interior designer, Suzanne Barnes, is a regular visitor at Fresh: Art Fair Cheltenham. She has a wealth of experience in residential, commercial, hospitality, retail, and educational settings. Suzanne has written a piece for Fresh: to exemplify her thoughts on the design process, and to give insights into the way she works – and could work with you.
Over to Suzanne….
Suzanne Barnes Design Partnership Ltd is an independent interior design practice, based in the Midlands. Headed up by creative directors Suzanne Barnes and Alison Haigh, the company prides itself on creating individual style with the ability to design, source and create unique products, furnishings, and artwork.
Established in 1995, Suzanne Barnes Design Partnership works across a variety of sectors ranging from hotels, restaurants, and private residential properties.
The company strives to showcase the best in British design wherever possible, specifying primarily UK and European sourced products and materials. Having built a strong reputation within the Midlands, projects now regularly take the team across the UK and Europe.
The creative element of working as an interior designer encompasses everything from space planning, creating the right ambiance, furniture layouts, lighting design, and specification of decorative elements and furnishings – including artwork. It is key that all items, particularly the art on the walls, represent the clients’ style and desires.
Whether working with existing pieces, assisting with the purchase or commission of new works, or simply reframing or rehanging, the aim is to enhance the space, whilst celebrating the art and the overall collective aesthetic.
When working with existing/client-owned pieces, they can act as a starting point for a design.
These images show how this wonderful picture was used to create the colour scheme for this kitchen design and extension of a Victorian home.
This picture was previously tucked away in another room on a lemon wall – this didn’t do it any justice. So, whilst collaborating with the client, it was decided that it would be used to create the scheme for the new space. The blue/green shade was used on the island and the wonderful mustard yellow colour on the glass splashback, teamed with neutral shades, the picture had found its new home.
The picture had proven to be a great indicator of personality; a benchmark to ascertain taste and passion and a useful tool for me as the designer to understand and identify the clients’ style. It is a good example of a personal artwork used as an intrinsic element of the overall design. Repositioning of and purchasing new pieces were used to complete the scheme.
It is very rare that artwork – whether pictures, sculptures of glass, bronze, or ceramic – are not incorporated into a room design, however discreet they may be.
Often the selection is made during or towards the end of a project. Selection of artwork with a client is fun, personal, and often enlightening. It may be chosen by subject matter, the artist’s style or simply by its colour, size, texture, or the feeling it evokes.
The positioning, and the location of the artwork, is also key in not only enhancing a space but celebrating the art itself. Whist a rule of thumb is to hang centered on the average eye level, combinations or grouping of pictures of varying styles and sizes can be hung in pleasing composition by someone with a keen eye for the aesthetic and good measuring skills. A tip is to lay your pictures on the floor in an area close to the size and proximity of the wall you intend to hang them on, keep the gaps small, and use common links to position them. Placing of artwork in relation to other furniture items also needs to be addressed both in composition and size. For example, a small picture will benefit from a small wall or being placed adjacent to say a lamp – something to stop it ‘swimming’ on a large wall!
As a frequent visitor to individual art galleries over decades, both professionally and personally, I have found the last six years of the Cheltenham Fresh Art Fair has provided me with a platform to bring clients, socialise, view, and discuss all the artworks available. The selection is wide and varied, not only in style, genre, and execution, but also in scale and price tag. This makes for a comfortable and inclusive environment to browse and buy art, with all the galleries and representatives being friendly, knowledgeable, and most importantly approachable.
Each visit has resulted in some fine works obtained by my clients.
