How to Choose Art for Your Home: A Guide to Pieces You’ll Love Living With
View of dining room in our Scarsdale Residence.
Meaningful art, emerging craft trends, and thoughtful collaboration shape today’s most inspiring homes
Choosing art for your home is one of the most exciting (and overwhelming) parts of designing a space. Between renovating, selecting finishes, and furnishing rooms, many homeowners feel pulled toward pieces that simply “work” with the décor. We sat down with New York-based art advisor, Selen Sarıoğlu, to discuss how the best art does far more than match a sofa. It becomes something you want to live with, day after day.
In this conversation, she shares how to choose art that truly resonates, the art trends shaping 2025, and why integrating art early in the design process can elevate your entire home.
Meet Selen
Selen Sarıoğlu Sulos is an art advisor and writer specializing in Postwar and Contemporary art. She has a background in finance, having graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and started her career at Goldman Sachs.
She later earned a master’s degree in Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art and has worked for Art Basel fair company and Sotheby’s auction house. She is a member of the Guggenheim’s Middle Eastern Acquisition Committee and a co-founder of Cultureist Art Foundation.
Q. What makes a piece of art worth living with?
“When someone is building or renovating a home, they’re flooded with choices. From your perspective, what separates art you simply like from art that genuinely belongs in your life and space?”
Selen: It’s easy to find dozens of works that “look good” in an interior—say, something that matches the sofa or fits a certain color palette. But finding a work you connect with on a deeper level requires more than a visual fit.
You want a piece you’re happy to see every single day. When a work continues to feel interesting, moving, or energizing over time—regardless of where it’s hung—that’s when it truly belongs in your life and not just in your living room.
Q. Which emerging artists or trends should design-minded homeowners be paying attention to right now?
Selen: There are a few trends of our times, and two of them really go hand in hand. I love the renewed interest in crafts. For years, the art world largely overlooked craft-based practices, but that has shifted. The Whitney Museum’s 2022 exhibition on craft-based art from 1950 to 2019 really helped carve a place for crafts in the contemporary art conversation.
Alongside that, there’s been a rise in textile art. I’ve always loved the softness, warmth, and tactility textiles bring to a space. They make more unexpected wall pieces than painting or photography.
Jordan Nassar is a wonderful example of this intersection. He’s a young artist who was included in the Whitney’s craft show, and his exquisite contemporary landscapes incorporate intricate, woven patterns. His work feels both historically grounded and completely of the moment.
Art our design team is inspired by…
El Anatsui transforms simple, everyday objects into grand art pieces.
Q. How does someone know if a piece will stand the test of time in their home—not just aesthetically, but emotionally?
Selen: Aesthetically, it’s actually quite easy for something to “stand the test of time”: if it works well in the room, it will probably keep looking good there.
But part of the joy of living with art is moving things around—reshuffling pieces, trying them in different rooms, seeing how they interact with new surroundings. That’s why it’s important to love the artwork for itself first, not just for the wall it’s going on.
When you’re choosing a work because you love the artist and the piece on its own terms and then considering how it relates to your interiors—that’s when you’re building a collection, not just filling a spot over the sofa. The art advisor and interior designer can always help find the right place for a meaningful piece of art in the house.
View of dining room in our Amsterdam Residence.
Q. When you collaborate with interior designers, what’s your approach to selecting art that elevates the architecture rather than competing with it?
Selen: On residential projects, I see my role as collaborative and supportive—to both the client and the interior designer. I always begin with a joint conversation with the client and the designer to understand the larger vision: how the space should feel, how the architecture functions, and what role art should play within that.
I firmly believe everyone is entitled to their own taste, and there is good art for every sensibility. My job is to bring in my knowledge of art history, the contemporary scene, and the market to create a strong, thoughtful selection that aligns with that vision.
View of Living Room in our Soho Residence. Art by Diana Delgado
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Q. For clients renovating or moving into a new home, when should they start thinking about art—and how can it shape the entire design?
Selen: Honestly, it’s never too early to start thinking about art, nor is it ever too late. Ideally, art is considered alongside the architecture and interiors, not as an afterthought. When you bring it into the conversation early, it can influence everything from the layout and lighting to the color palette and materials. That said, art can also be layered in later and still transform a space. The key is to find art that the client can relate to and enjoy.
To continue the conversation with Selen, please reach out at SLNS Art Projects.
