If you're looking to buy a piece for your home, follow your heart and get something you like and want to live with for a few years
The number of art galleries along Hollywood Road alone has grown by 20 per cent in the past year, providing residents with more choice - and more room for error - when selecting art for their homes. After consulting with local gallery owners and experts, here is an overview of what to do and, more importantly, what not to do.
Buying art for your home in Hong Kong comes with a special set of challenges, the most prevalent being space constraints. Frances Leung Ching-yan, gallery manager of Design Gallery in the Convention Centre, says: 'My shop is 4,200 sqft and we have to display 5,000 items per year, so I pay attention to the size of the products selected to be sure they are size-appropriate to a Hong Kong home.'
The same cannot be said of the scale of contemporary art on offer in the leading galleries. Artists choose to work in their preferred medium, in the size deemed best for each piece. While one might fall in love with a painting that is 3 square metres, it is not suited to a small studio apartment.
That said, the experts speak in a single voice when asked how to decide on a purchase. 'Buy art that you love,' they agree. Mandy d'Abo, owner of The Cat Street Gallery on Hollywood Road, believes personal value ahead of all other concerns is essential. 'With art, it's more important that you get an emotional dividend from it rather than financial,' she says. 'Buy something you like and want to live with for a few years.'
And she sees no problem with hanging a painting next to photos, with a sculpture on the floor below them. 'Don't worry about the decorative aspect of what you're buying and how it fits with other pieces. You're the one who has to live with it.'
Christopher Bailey, owner of Picture This gallery on Queen's Road Central, compares buying art to investing in a property. 'If you are buying investment property, it doesn't matter if it is something you wouldn't want to live in,' he says. 'You'd be thinking about rentability, yield, ease of resale and expected capital gain. If you're living in the home, investment potential is a consideration, but primarily you're concerned with whether you want to live there, is it big enough, close to schools and family members.