Sometimes finding the right piece of art to hang on your wall can be difficult. Once that first painting is tacked on, there’s the added pressure to fill the adjacent walls with complementing work to balance out the room. British artist Charlotte Mann, however, takes an alternative approach to adorning walls with art–she draws directly onto them with thick black markers.
The sharp black lines are in direct contrast to the vast, milky white background Mann tends to work on. It’s like crossing over into a comic book world! Mann’s expertly detailed illustrations add a sense of life and often exude a feeling of comfort found in one’s own cluttered home. While the drawn figures take up no extending physical space beyond the confines of the wall itself, they enhance the room’s homey aura with their depictions of clothes and books strewn about. In real life, this scene could be maddening, but on a two-dimensional plane it works brilliantly.
Mann’s wall decor installations have been presented in various spaces and have even served as backdrops at high-end events like fashion shows. Each site-specific piece depicts a room with a uniform style that complements its surrounding area and the room’s purpose, creating a sort of meta-room. The room-within-a-room aesthetic is really intriguing and quite the space-saver for large-group events. It seems especially effective in a windowless room, providing a false sense of escape for the claustrophobic.
