Don’t paint it black

I am often asked about my fram­ing options-I don’t offer a whole heck of a lot-I usu­ally frame with a white or off-white mat in a nar­row black cor­po­rate style frame. If the work doesn’t need a mat I usu­ally frame with a sim­ple wooden frame hav­ing no fancy fil­lets, coves or bevels.

Peo­ple ask why I don’t frame my very col­or­ful images in black, “After all, the color black makes the col­ors in the paint­ing really pop!” Black is a color and it is an emo­tion­ally charged color at that. I don’t want peo­ple look­ing at my art say­ing “Wow, look at that art in that black mat.” Or “Wow look at that art in that fancy frame.” Peo­ple notice a black mat, a wide black frame or an exces­sively gaudy frame.

Vari­a­tion of mat and frame show­ing how a white mat and a sim­ple frame sets of the art more neu­trally than a black mat & fancy frame do.

I want my art to be the cen­ter of atten­tion. I don’t want peo­ple pay­ing too much atten­tion to the color of the mat and the frame; these things are a vehi­cle for get­ting the paint­ing on the wall and set­ting it off appro­pri­ately, with­out become the star of the show. Mats and frames should be effec­tive, unob­tru­sive, and hope­fully not clash with the fur­ni­ture or the art­work. In my opin­ion the eas­i­est way to accom­plish this mis­sion is with the sim­plest dis­play with the least emo­tion­ally charged col­ors and styles pos­si­ble. I accom­plish this mis­sion with a white mat and and sim­ple frame.

And that is why I don’t paint my art black with a black mat and or fancy frame.  I have lots of art in nice neu­tral frams for sale at my web­site, I hope you will check it out.

Yours in Art

Jake, Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

The artist has fed­er­ally copy­righted all the art­work in this blog. The artist retains all repro­duc­tion and pub­lish­ing copy­rights. You may not copy, re-distribute, imi­tate, derive OR oth­er­wise use these images in any form with­out the explicit writ­ten per­mis­sion of the artist.