Discover how to tap into the prosperity, adaptability, and recalibration of the Wood Snake in your home for Lunar New Year 2025.
As the world celebrates Lunar New Year and welcomes in the Year of the Snake – wood snake, to be exact – we take a look at how your contemporary art collection can benefit from the ancient tradition of Feng Shui.
To some, Feng Shui might simply offer a set of interior decorating guidelines, but to others, it’s a profound spiritual tool. Either way, you’ll love the potential effects of Feng Shui if incorporated correctly, and 2025 is predicted to be a year of recalibration. Being the sixth sign of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, slithering into the Year of the Snake as the mythical Dragon of 2024 takes its leave will bring adaptability, growth, and recalibration.
But, how can we give ourselves a boost toward such promising fortunes? Within Feng Shui, certain factors are considered lucky and lend themselves to different colours and materials that encourage a healthy flow of energy in your home. By combining curation with direction, colour or arrangement, the placement of both furniture and art holds the power to strengthen or weaken the five elements of Feng Shui – wood, fire, earth, metal and water.
So, here’s some suggestions for how you can make decisions that will empower your home in the Year of the Snake.
In the Chinese zodiac, there are five essential areas of life, which are characterised into the five elements above. In order for your year to be prosperous, these five elements need to be balanced in terms of quantity. 2025 is set to see a shortage of earth and, even more so, metal. In comparison, there’ll be an excess of wood and water. This means one clear action arises when it comes to recalibrating your home for ultimate success this year. It’s time to boost your interior with metallics and earth tones.
Queer Eye’s interior specialist Jeremiah Brent is an earth tone aficionado, utilising both furniture, wall colour, and art to create rejuvenating spaces. These tones – umber, ochre, and forest green, for example – are wonderfully versatile and one of the most timeless palettes you can use in your home. When it comes to art, utilising the warmth or coolness found in nature doesn’t necessarily mean jumping on the landscape bus. Abstract paintings, ceramics, and contemporary portraiture can all produce the earth-boosting effect you seek.
The surrealism of Grace Wilmhurst’s oil paintings demonstrate this perfectly. In ‘Overground’, the traditional landscape is twisted to include details that shoot the work into the realms of freshness and invigoration. There’s an uncanny, unsettling element, particularly in the sky, making this a great example of how you might bring earth tones into your art collection whilst honouring a sense of newness and intrigue.
Our advice from 2024’s Year of the Dragon also has some extra helpful tips on buying original earthenware.
Metallics have had a real resurgence in terms of interior design recently, but their importance in art remains a constant. We see artists all over the world using metal in their sculptural work, whether that be classical bronze casting or using recycled metal, such as steel or wire wool. There’s so much resourcefulness to be seen with this medium.
Looking at the work of Tom Putman and Victor Levai, you can see how the use of floral motifs have been interpreted differently. Putman’s steel rose is spiky and the lines are clean cut, whereas Levai’s sculpture (featured image) has an organic sense of softness, despite the hard materials.
There’s a way to incorporate metal into your art collection for every taste, and no matter the feeling you wish to evoke.
Imagine a river going through your home or office. Position furniture to allow for a smooth flow to all areas, keeping the Qi moving freely through and letting it flow into the right directions of your life.
Of course, you can always take the Year of the Snake literally. Honestly, we’re quite scared of snakes, so the idea of a realism painting or life-like sculpture isn’t particularly tempting. But snakes have long symbolised a whole host of positive attributes: fertility and rebirth, mystical femininity, wisdom and protection.
Snake motifs appear subtly in both Erin Armstrong and Marguax Carpentier’s figurative depictions. Look closer and you’ll see the snakes included, perhaps to to signify female strength and power.
Whilst each particular sign, or animal, has specific colours that will be lucky in 2025, there are some general hues you can harness to increase your chances of good fortune.
There are two colours we want to highlight for this year. Yellow and purple are not only impactful on their own, but they also sit opposite each other on the colour wheel. In terms of colour theory, this means that they’re complementary. The strong contrast between them, as you can tell from Brandon Schubert’s living room styling, makes for a vivid and brightening effect.
For stability and growth, opt for yellow. For a fiery sense of wisdom, go for purple. These two colours are going to be lucky in 2025, so do let yourself be inspired by their joint or solo brilliance on your art collecting journey this year.
That’s a wrap on our look into the vast possibilities of a Feng Shui home in 2025, Year of the Wood Snake. Seeking the opportunity to refine rather than completely overhaul, your home can become a hot spot for recalibration this year.
Good luck, and happy art collecting at your next Affordable Art Fair. To be the first to receive updates, inspiration, and exclusive ticket offers, make sure to sign up to your local fair’s newsletter.
Featured image: Julie Arnoux, ‘Camsuza 3’, 2023, tirage fine art pigmentaire, 80x120cm, Pascale Vilain