Tennis Wall Art

Tennis Wall Art: The Effect on a Room

It brings tension into a room, which most wall art works hard to avoid. A landscape settles a space; a figure caught mid-serve, weight back and racket dropped behind the shoulder, does the opposite. There is a held moment in it, and a room with one on the wall feels slightly more awake. That is useful in a home office or a gym and tiring in a bedroom, so put it where alertness is welcome.

Court surfaces hand you a strong ground colour whether you want one or not. Clay is a warm orange-brown that behaves like terracotta and suits a room with timber and cream in it. Grass gives a flat mid-green with white lines. Hard courts are blue, sometimes very blue, and that blue will drive the palette of the room rather than fit into it. Choose the surface with the care you would give a paint colour.

Geometry is the second gift of the subject. Court markings are straight, repeated and strongly perspectival, so these images bring order in a way few sports subjects manage. An overhead view of an empty court is essentially an abstract composition, and it hangs happily in rooms where an action shot would look out of place.

Vintage equipment is the quieter route. Wooden rackets, presses, old ball tins and faded net posts read as still life, carry muted colour, and sit comfortably in a hallway or a snug where a full-colour action image would shout. The subject stays legible without the noise.

When you hang an action shot, point the movement into the room. If the player is running or swinging towards the left, put the piece on the right-hand side of the wall so there is space ahead of them. Hang it the other way round and the eye is pushed straight off the edge of the wall, which is oddly unsettling once you have noticed it.