When creating a gallery wall, the lighting is just as important as the artwork. Lighting, helps highlight the artwork making it stand out and directing your eyes to be able to see the artwork clearly. In this blog post, I will explain different types of gallery wall lighting to help you decide which lighting choices you should make when planning your gallery wall.
Gallery Wall Lighting
What is a Gallery Wall?
A gallery wall is a grouping of more than four photos or artwork that is framed hanging on a wall. A gallery wall has an unlimited amount of artwork or photographs. Usually the spacing between artwork on a gallery wall is consistent spacing.
Why Does Gallery Wall Lighting Matter?
Gallery wall lighting, enhances artwork or photographs of your gallery wall, and allows your gallery wall to be more visible and easily seen. The lighting of the gallery wall also helps create a mood in your home.
For example, you might want a warm, cozy mood in which you can choose a warm coloured lightbulbs that give off a warm glow or maybe you want something that is more moody so you're going to have lighting that's a little bit more dramatic or have less lighting.
If you want more of a modern feel you might select cool colour lightbulbs to make your home really look like a white gallery space.
Lastly, gallery wall lighting can help create focus. You can have lights that specifically target a specific artwork or photographs of your gallery wall. This is especially helpful if you have a large gallery wall that you're creating in your home.
When Choosing Gallery Wall Lighting You Want Lighting That:
Highlights artwork and brings out colours/details.
Creates atmosphere in the room.
Protects artwork by choosing safe lighting options (UV, heat considerations).
Types of Lighting for Gallery Walls
Picture lights (mounted above or on the frame) or Wall sconces
This can give a more traditional or a museum/art gallery, type of a feel.
Track lighting (adjustable, flexible for changing displays)
Track lighting is commonly used in art galleries because the lights can move and pivot to best showcase the art. This is a good choice of lighting if you plan on updating and changing your gallery wall frequently.
Wall washers/recessed lights (broad, even coverage)
Recessed lighting, allows the light to give a broad coverage, but the artwork is able to be highlighted more than some of the other gallery wall lighting options as the lights are last noticeable, since they're flush with the ceiling.
Accent spotlights (for dramatic focus)
You can use Spotlight wall sconces for table lamps. This can create more of a dramatic mood, and more of a glow there can be more of an at the size of the lighting, which helps create that drama moody atmosphere.
Choosing the Right Bulbs
Colour temperature (warm vs. cool tones, 2700K–3000K for warm natural light).
Brightness (lumens vs. watts, balance to avoid overexposure).
LED vs. halogen vs. incandescent (pros and cons, longevity, energy efficiency).
It's good to choose consistent lightbulbs for your home so that you're using the same cool or warm temperature lightbulbs throughout every room as your home this helps make your home look more cohesive.
Placement and Angles
Before hanging the artwork in your gallery wall, you want to test the lighting to make sure the angles on the lighting are correct. You don't want to have harsh shadows over artwork or photographs, because that would defeat the purpose of highlighting the art in a gallery wall. You can do this by having someone hold up an artwork and testing out different light options especially if you have lights like track lighting where you can move and hit it and angle the different light sources.
Style and Aesthetics
Matching lighting fixtures to room décor
Do you want to consider the style of your home and the room decor as well as the colour of the wall for your gallery wall? Are you choosing a white wall for your gallery wall or is it going to be a darker colour and you can choose lighting and lampshades and different fixtures that are going to best nights the aesthetic choices in the room.
Practical Tips
Use dimmers for flexibility to allow you to change the lighting throughout the day or seasons
Test light placement before committing and hanging the artwork
Protect artwork from fading or heat damage- consider getting artwork professionally framed in glass with UV protection so that the colours of the artwork don’t fade over time.
Conclusion:
When you are planning a gallery wall, it's good to also plan the gallery wall lighting and not just the layout of the artwork and photographs.
Get clear about your personal design style, the decor and paint colours that you have in the room and the mood or atmosphere that you would like the gallery wall lighting to create understanding. These decisions will allow you to plan effective gallery wall lighting that creates the mood you are after while also highlighting and enhancing the artwork in the gallery wall.
There's lots of inspiration on Pinterest and I invite you to follow me on Pinterest for more ideas by clicking on the button below.
If you were looking for artwork for your gallery wall, you can view the art that I have for sale by clicking on the button in my shop below.