Fresh ink

Finalist 6 – Colour Home Awards Competition

A hallway gets ‘tattooed’ with some punchy blue paint.

If you’re in two minds about getting a tattoo, why not paint one on your walls? That’s what Janeen Page did in her 1950s former state house in New Plymouth. Her hallway is now adorned with mermaids, marine creatures and other fantastical images, which look as if they’re plucked from the pages of a book or a sailor’s arm.

Detail of hallway art - 2
Homage to Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Over Christmas, Janeen decided to lighten up the “dark and dreary” space with Resene SpaceCote in Resene Half Wheatfield. “I loved the clean warm tones and, once painted it reminded me so much of porcelain ceramics,” she says.

As a potter, Janeen has always admired the work of Australian ceramist Gerry Wedd, who infuses traditional blue and white pottery with modern conversations. These influences helped inspire her playful and eccentric imagery choices, plucked from old science books that Janeen has collected for many years, alongside “tattoos I never braved”.

Janeen Page

A punchy blue hallway

Detail of hallway art

To complement the base colour, Janeen settled on the deep, dusk blue of Resene SpaceCote in Resene Aviator. “Resene Aviator was a close match to the cobalt used on Dutch delftware ceramics and 14th-century Asian porcelain,” she says. “After 20 years of living in the same house, it’s a joy to transform it with paint.”

Janeen spent two weeks painting her illustrations with a fine brush, enjoying getting “lost in the process” for hours at a time. “It was a bit addictive,” she admits, and has no plans of stopping anytime soon. “I tell people I tattooed my hallway, and like tattoos, I might keep adding to it. It’s like painting your own wallpaper.”