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Speaking at Design Week Rhode Island: Art as the Soul of Interior Design

Shilo Ratner geometric abstract painting in modern interior design - Design Week Rhode Island speaker - image credit: Powell Fine Art Advisory (powellfineartadvisory.com)

I'm honored to be included as one of the speaking artists at Design Week Rhode Island, joining Kelly Taylor Interior Design for a panel discussion on how art transforms interior spaces.

Art Meets Interior Design at Design Week Rhode Island

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be speaking at Design Week Rhode Island alongside Kelly Taylor Interior Design and Candita Clayton Gallery. This is an incredible opportunity to share how I work with interior designers to help their clients visualize how original artwork will live and breathe in their spaces.

I believe deeply that art plays a powerful role in transforming a space — not as an afterthought, but as a foundational element of great interior design. I'm excited to share my knowledge and experience with fellow artists, designers, and collectors at this special event.

About the Event: Artful Harmony

Artful Harmony: Art as the Soul of Interior Design is a combination talk, Q&A, and gallery show that explores the essential relationship between art and interior design.

The event is built around a simple but powerful premise: Would you have a living room without a sofa? Or a bedroom without a bed? For Kelly Taylor Interior Design and Candita Clayton Gallery, art is simply a non-negotiable component of any interior.

What You'll Learn

Selecting art for your home can feel like a daunting task — but not when you have the right tools and team. In their decade-plus collaboration, Kelly and Candita have honed the process of helping clients learn to speak their souls and complete their interiors with art. At this event, you'll discover:

  • How to select art that truly reflects your personality and complements your space
  • How artists work with designers to visualize artwork in client spaces before purchasing
  • The secrets of integrating art with interior design seamlessly and confidently
  • How to get started collecting no matter your space or price point
  • How to truly enjoy the experience of building an art collection

My Role as a Speaking Artist

As one of the featured speaking artists, I'll be discussing how I collaborate with interior designers to show their clients how my geometric abstract paintings will work in their specific spaces. This is something I'm deeply passionate about — bridging the gap between artist and collector through the language of design. That drive is rooted in a core artist philosophy I've developed over years of working at the intersection of minimalism, landscape, and abstraction.

My contemporary abstract paintings are designed to elevate interiors, bringing calm, sophistication, and visual interest to modern spaces. Working with interior designers allows me to ensure that each piece finds exactly the right home.

Art and Interior Design: A Natural Partnership

The relationship between art and interior design is one of the most exciting conversations happening in the design world today. Great interiors aren't complete without art — and great art deserves a thoughtfully designed space to live in. When art and interior design work together:

  • Spaces feel complete — art anchors a room and gives it soul
  • Color palettes harmonize — art can set or complement the color story of a space. My own approach to color has been deeply shaped by the work of Josef Albers and his theories on how colors interact
  • Personality emerges — art reveals who lives in a space in a way furniture alone cannot
  • Investment value grows — original art appreciates while enhancing daily life
  • Emotional resonance deepens — art creates moments of pause and reflection in the home

About Kelly Taylor Interior Design

Kelly Taylor Interior Design is known for creating interiors that are as personal as they are beautiful. Kelly's approach centers on understanding her clients deeply — their lives, their tastes, their aspirations — and translating that understanding into spaces that feel authentically theirs.

About Candita Clayton Gallery

Candita Clayton Gallery in New London, New Hampshire, is one of the galleries that represents my work. Candita's expertise in connecting collectors with art that speaks to them makes her the perfect partner for this kind of event. Her decade-plus collaboration with Kelly Taylor is a testament to the power of art and design working hand in hand.

Event Details

  • Event: Artful Harmony: Art as the Soul of Interior Design
  • Part of: Design Week Rhode Island
  • Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2023
  • Time: 5:30–7:30 PM
  • Venue: The Studio at the Dye House
  • Address: 46 Dike St, Providence, RI 02909
  • Format: Talk, Q&A, and Gallery Show

Who Should Attend

This event is perfect for art collectors looking to learn how to integrate art into their homes, interior designers seeking to deepen their relationship with original art, first-time buyers who want to start collecting, design enthusiasts interested in the intersection of art and interior design, and anyone who wants to make their space feel more personal and complete. If you're unsure where to start, my room-by-room art size guide is a helpful resource before you attend.

Explore Original Art for Your Interior

If you're inspired by the idea of original art transforming your space, I invite you to explore my collection of geometric abstract paintings. Each piece is created with the same intention — to bring calm, sophistication, and visual depth to the spaces where it lives. Whether you're working with an interior designer or curating your space independently, I'm happy to help you find the right piece for your home or office.

View Original Art Collection

Commission a Custom Painting

Follow along on Instagram for studio updates and event announcements.

Leggi anche

Vedi tutto Shilo Ratner Art Studio & Exhibition Updates
Full Moon Mountain, a 30x30 geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner, featuring a luminous moon above a structured mountain landscape in blue and white
Geometric Art for a Home Office: How Structure and Color Shape the Way You Work
The home office has become one of the most considered rooms in the house. It's where focus meets creativity, and where long hours demand an environment that supports both. Art plays a larger role in that environment than most people realize, and geometric abstract art, with its structure, rhythm, and disciplined use of color, is especially well suited to the space.
Three geometric abstract mountain paintings by Shilo Ratner, featuring bold color and structured form
The Psychology of Color in Art
The Psychology of Color in Art I've been thinking a lot lately about how color functions almost independently from subject matter in painting. Long before we recognize an object, a horizon line, or a figure, we react emotionally to color relationships. That reaction is immediate and psychological. It's one of the reasons I continue returning to artists like Josef Albers and Pierre Bonnard. Their work reminds me that color itself can become the structure, emotion, and atmosphere of a painting. Albers approached color almost scientifically. His studies explored how colors change depending on what surrounds them, how one color can appear completely different when placed beside another. A muted gray can suddenly become luminous. A soft blue can feel cold against one tone and electric against another. What fascinates me about Albers is that he proved color is never fixed. It's relational. Psychological. Unstable in the most beautiful way. Bonnard approached color differently, but with just as much intensity. His paintings dissolve observation into atmosphere. The color combinations are often unexpected: acidic yellows against lavender shadows, saturated oranges beside pale violets, strange greens woven into interiors and skin tones. Yet somehow the paintings feel emotionally true. That balance between dissonance and harmony is something I think about constantly in my own work. When I'm painting water, marshes, or coastal spaces, I'm rarely interested in reproducing literal color. I'm more interested in creating a sensation through color interaction. Sometimes that means pushing warmth into areas that should technically feel cool, or allowing deep ultramarines to sit beside softened blush tones because the tension between those colors creates emotional movement. I think that's where painting becomes less about documentation and more about perception. Certain color combinations can create stillness while others create vibration. A muted blue-gray beside a sharp coral can suddenly make a painting feel alive. Soft tonal shifts can create quietness and distance. Saturation can create physical energy. I notice this especially when layering paint. Often the most important decisions happen when I stop thinking about "local color" entirely and start thinking about temperature, contrast, memory, and emotional weight. That's something Bonnard understood deeply. His paintings were never really about interiors or landscapes alone. They were about light filtered through memory and emotion. The color carried the psychological experience of the space. I think collectors respond to this intuitively, even if they don't consciously analyze why. People often tell me a painting feels calming, expansive, nostalgic, or atmospheric before they ever discuss composition. The emotional response happens first. And honestly, I think that's the power of painting itself. Color bypasses language. It reaches us in a place that feels instinctive, emotional, and almost impossible to fully explain. Related Reading If this resonates, these posts go deeper into the ideas behind the work: How Josef Albers Shaped the Way I See Color — the direct influence of Albers' relational color theory on my geometric practice. Pierre Bonnard and the Color That Holds — how a trip to Paris deepened my understanding of color as emotional memory. Raimonds Staprans: Saturated Color, Presence, and Lasting Impact — another painter who uses color as pure psychological force. Pieces That Connect These works came directly out of the ideas above, color as structure, tension as atmosphere: Sail Away, 36×36 — ultramarine and warm coral in direct tension, the color does the emotional work before the subject registers. Beach, 30×30 — soft tonal shifts across a geometric plane, stillness created through temperature rather than subject. Harbor, 30×40 — deep blues and muted neutrals layered to create distance and quiet, the kind of atmospheric weight Bonnard understood. Bring This Into Your Space If you've ever felt drawn to a painting before you could explain why, that's color doing exactly what it's meant to do. Explore the collection to find the piece that holds that feeling for you, or inquire about a custom commission if you have a specific palette or feeling in mind. Explore the Collection →
Shilo Ratner working in her studio on a geometric abstract painting
What Makes a Painting Feel Alive?
There's a moment in the studio when a painting stops needing you. Shilo Ratner reflects on what makes a painting feel emotionally alive, from intuitive color choices and visible layers to the tension between imperfection and completion.
Beach 30x30 original geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner on white wall
One Painting, Fully Explained: Beach
Most paintings get a title, a price, and a few sentences. This one takes a closer look. Beach is a 30 × 30 geometric abstract painting built from the logic of the shoreline, behavior, not appearance. This is a complete breakdown: where it started, how it was built, what changed, and what most people miss. See Beach in the collection → The Initial Idea The starting point wasn't a visual. It was a behavior. I kept returning to the way water moves at the shoreline, not the look of it, but the logic. The tide doesn't repeat exactly. Each wave recedes at a slightly different angle, leaves a slightly different edge, pulls back with slightly different force. There's a system operating, but it never produces the same result twice. A system needs enough repetition to be legible, but enough variation to stay alive. That tension between system and variation is what I wanted to build into a painting. Not a picture of the beach. A painting that works the way the beach works. Building the System The canvas is square, which matters. A square doesn't have a natural direction. It doesn't push the eye left to right or top to bottom the way a landscape format does. That neutrality was useful here, because the movement had to come entirely from the forms themselves, not from the shape of the support. The composition is built from horizontal bands that shift, compress, and interrupt each other. They function as tidal layers: each one moving at a different rate, overlapping without merging. The eye follows the edges rather than any single focal point. There's no center of gravity. The painting holds attention by distributing it. That relationship between rhythm and structure is something I explored more directly in Ebb and Flow Abstract Painting: When Surrender Becomes Creation. I also made a deliberate decision to keep the forms hard-edged. Soft edges would read as atmospheric, impressionistic, wave-like in a literal sense. Hard edges force the geometry to carry the movement instead. The result feels more like a diagram of the coast than a depiction of it. Color Logic The palette is blue and neutral, but the neutrals are doing most of the structural work. A range of warm and cool off-whites sits alongside the blues, and the temperature shifts between them create a subtle spatial push and pull. Warmer neutrals advance slightly. Cooler ones recede. That movement is quiet, but it's what gives the painting depth without relying on illusionistic perspective. The same principle is at work in How Josef Albers Shaped the Way I See Color. The blues are controlled rather than expressive. Some lean toward slate, others toward a washed cerulean, others toward near-gray. Each one is chosen for its relationship to the forms around it, not for emotional effect on its own. The emotion comes from the whole, not any single color. I also kept the value range relatively compressed. High contrast would have created drama. I was after something steadier, calm, but still in motion. The result is a kind of unsettled calm, like watching the tide without needing it to resolve. What Changed Along the Way The early version had more forms, more bands, more interruptions, more variation in width. It was busier, and that busyness worked against the system. I simplified. Removed two horizontal elements entirely. Widened two of the remaining bands so the rhythm slowed down. The painting became quieter, and paradoxically more active, because the eye had room to move between the forms rather than being crowded by them. The frame color also changed. The original frame was a cooler white that competed with the lightest tones in the painting. I switched to a warmer wood finish that separates cleanly from the canvas without pulling attention. What Viewers Don't Notice The edges of the forms are not perfectly parallel. This is intentional. If every horizontal band were exactly parallel, the painting would feel mechanical, static, like a striped field rather than a system in motion. The slight deviations, a degree or two at most, create the sense that the forms are shifting relative to each other. It reads as movement without being obvious about it. Most people also don't notice how few colors are actually in the painting. From a distance it reads as rich and varied. Up close, the palette is spare. That compression is part of the discipline: getting a lot of visual information from a small number of decisions. The bottom edge of the composition is slightly heavier than the top. The forms there are wider, the values slightly darker. It grounds the painting without making it feel weighted down. It's the visual equivalent of the shoreline itself, the place where everything settles before the next wave comes through. If that kind of movement resonates with you, Beach is available as a framed original, 30 × 30 inches, ready to hang. If you'd like to see it in your space before deciding, I'm happy to help with that. You can also browse the full coastal paintings collection for related works. View Beach →  |  Questions: shiloratner@gmail.com
Buy original art with payment plans - flexible installment payments available
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I still remember the first painting I bought for myself. I was in my early 20s, standing in a small gallery, going back and forth on whether I should do it. It felt like a big deal, because it was. I was excited, but also nervous about spending the money. I didn't fully understand yet what it meant to live with a piece of original art, only that I wanted my apartment to feel more like mine, more considered, more complete.
Geometric abstract painting displayed on a white wall, showing structured form and color in an interior setting- Artist Shilo Ratner
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Early decisions act as constraints, but not in a restrictive way. They create direction. A horizon line placed slightly higher or lower shifts the entire spatial experience. A compressed shape changes how the surrounding space breathes. A color introduced too early can either anchor the work or flatten it. These choices don't just sit on the surface. They organize everything that follows. The painting begins to build from that first condition.
Original geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner hanging in a home interior
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As an artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and represented by respected galleries, I’ve seen how a painting can transform a space, spark conversation, and even become an investment. First-time collectors often wonder whether a piece will “fit” their home or lifestyle, but the truth is: trust your instincts.
Theophilus Brown monograph, Bay Area Figurative Movement, from Shilo Ratner's personal collection
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The Influence of Nature on My Landscape Paintings
Nature has an incredible way of grounding us — and that influence is central to my landscape-inspired artwork. Rather than painting literal scenes, my work abstracts natural forms into simplified shapes and layered compositions. 
Traces of Stillness — 6x6 inch original landscape collage series by Shilo Ratner, layered paper works on paper
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Large-scale public art installation: Pockets Filled With Hope, a 5x10ft geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner, installed at Southern Connecticut State University School of Business.