Gorilla Wall Art

Gorilla Wall Art: Getting the Size Right

Scale is the first decision with this subject, and it is the one people get wrong. A gorilla portrait works because of mass — the shoulders, the brow, the sheer weight of the animal — and mass does not survive being shrunk. Below roughly the width of a two-seater sofa the image stops being imposing and becomes a picture of an ape. If the wall cannot take something substantial, pick a different animal.

Head-and-shoulder compositions are the odd exception that still needs size, because so much of their power sits in small detail: the creased skin around the eyes, the silver across an older male's back, the hands. Give that detail room and people will stand and study it. Cramp it and the whole thing turns muddy at normal viewing distance.

Rooms that suit it are the ones with a long sightline — above a stairwell, at the end of a hall, on the chimney breast of a room you can back away in. You need the distance as much as the wall, because these images want to be seen whole before they are seen in detail. Tonally this is a very dark subject, mostly black fur against green or grey, and dark prints eat light. On a shaded wall the animal can disappear into its own background. A lighter surround helps, and so does choosing an image where the light rakes across the fur rather than falling flat on it, picking out the ridge of the spine and the edge of the jaw.

Honest caveat: the direct-gaze portrait is powerful and also relentless. Not everyone wants to be watched while they eat dinner. If that gives you pause, look for a profile, a seated figure, or an animal looking off out of frame — you keep the presence and lose the confrontation entirely.