More than just a feature wall, gradient painting injects unique personality into a room

The creamy ceiling hue Scallop offsets the luxe cocooning vibe of the warmer brown shades of the walls in this living room: Farrow & Ball's Scallop, Marmelo, Etruscan Red, Deep Reddish Brown & Entrance Hall Pink. Photo by Farrow & Ball

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Innovative design trends often follow from the hospitality industry where stylish boutique hotels and restaurants create unique interiors that are dramatic departures from the conventional or popular styles of the moment. Those spaces feature esthetics that then become aspirational for homeowners such as the hotel-chic bedrooms that were all the rage not long ago as were spa-inspired bathrooms. More rare though is when the art world, specifically modern art, becomes the jumping off point for a new approach for using paint within the home.

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A recent collaboration between British paint manufacturer Farrow & Ball and American artist Carol Bove at the Guggenheim Museum in New York became the inspiration for a fresh interpretation of using colour in a residential context. Joa Studholme, Farrow & Ball’s Colour Curator, worked with Bove to create custom colours to make the museum’s rotunda walls not only a backdrop to showcase her vibrant-hued abstract sculptures but also as part of the exhibition with its own colour story. The result is a graduated colour scheme of greys that begins on the ground floor with a deep hue and gradually winds up the spiral in varying degrees of lighter shades of the same colour family.

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“Carol Bove’s team and the Guggenheim approached us to work with them on helping to bring the artist’s vision of creating a graduated ribbon of colour to life,” Studholme recalls. “We worked with their brief to create over 20 custom colours that operate as steps connecting each of our signature colours to the next in a seamless transition of colour as you move up the iconic rotunda.”

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Seeing the bold effect of the graduated application of colour in a large public environment lead Studholme to wonder how it could be applied in a domestic setting and embarked on formulating how “the idea of graduated colour schemes can be embraced in the home.” The key is to use colours of the same colour family which produces a harmonious transition of the colours throughout the space. And while there is no rule to how many colours one can use, Studholme advises using no fewer than three, noting that the bigger the space, the more colours can be incorporated.

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According to Studholme, there are endless possibilities when selecting a colour palette to create gradient colour schemes. As long as the tones are from the same colour family, she says, it will always work and will produce “a layered, polished effect.”

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“Warming earth tones running from deep Tanners Brown through to glowing Stirabout work particularly well, as do neutrals, but my favourite is graduating from rich Preference Red through Dead Salmon to Scallop,” she says. (Note: the dead in Dead Salmon refers to the matte finish and not an expired fish.)

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Blue could be a bold option for a living room but when layered in different intensities it can create a calming ambiance: Farrow & Ball’s Sizing No.314, Kakelugn, Kittiwake, Wine Dark. Photo by Farrow & Ball

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Various shades of green beautifully accent and frame the window and seating area: Farrow & Ball’s Studio Green, Calke Green, Yeabridge Green, Whirlybird. Photo by Farrow & Ball

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Just as there are no defined rules for the number of colours to create a gradient effect, there isn’t just one way to work with the various colours. Given that they’re all in the same colour family, there’s a lot of flexibility to where and how they can be applied, Studholme explains.

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She cautions though that “the gradient of colour is much enhanced when the strongest colour is used at the bottom to ground the room and add depth and nuance with lighter colours above to open the space. The lightest tone should be used on the ceiling to unify the design, ensuring that the ceiling feels like an intentional element rather than an afterthought.”