Fish Wall Art

Fish Wall Art and the Colours It Brings

Few subjects arrive with this much colour already loaded. Reef species bring electric blue, yellow and orange; koi bring white, vermilion and black; game fish and old angling studies bring silver, olive and a great deal of restraint. Those are three different decorating decisions wearing the same label, and the first job is working out which one your room can absorb. A saturated reef image needs plain surroundings and will run the colour scheme by itself. A muted trout study slots quietly in beside almost anything.

Water is what separates a good fish image from a specimen chart. Look for light doing something: shafts breaking up near the surface, a green gloom below, the distorted mirror of the waterline, bubbles trailing off a tail. Without that you have an accurate drawing of an animal on a flat ground, which is fine in a field guide and thin on a wall.

Shape argues for width in most cases. A fish is a long horizontal thing, and a single specimen in a tall frame leaves dead space above and below it. Shoals are the exception, because a mass of bodies can be stacked into any format you like, and a vertical column of fish rising towards the light is one of the few genuinely tall compositions the subject offers.

Bathrooms are the obvious room and not always the right one. Steam is unkind to anything hung on a wall, and the joke of fish above a bath wears thinner than people expect. Hallways, kitchens, studies and stairwells all take the subject perfectly well and let it be artwork rather than a pun.

Check which way the fish is facing before you settle on a wall. Hang one so it swims into the room and the eye follows it inward; hang it facing the nearest door and the composition quietly pushes everyone out. Flip the image in your head first.