Why hotels are the new public spaces to see incredible art
Luxury hotels are becoming inspiring destinations to discover contemporary art, with curated collections offering a deeper connection with place.
Rone’s iconic mural at The Westin Perth. Photo by Peter Bennetts.
The role of hotels as creative forums for experiencing art is growing, with some housing impressive collections complementing those of museums and galleries. From permanent collections to pop-up exhibitions, artist-in-residence programmes and site-specific installations, it’s all about plugging guests and visitors into the heart and soul of the location.
“At BAR Studio, we see art as integral to our interior design narratives, rather than just a decorative backdrop. It’s a fundamental way of enhancing the guest experience, with engaging pieces incorporated throughout the hotel, in both public spaces and guest rooms,” says Studio Director Rowena Hockin. "One of the aims of our interior design is to frame carefully chosen artworks as focal points in layered storytelling."
The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne, for example, houses more than a thousand pieces of art, spanning paintings, drawings and sculptures. The goal was to share artworks that have a relationship with Melbourne, allowing guests to encounter the diverse energy of the city and its people.
Capella Sydney’s art collection is one of the largest in an Australian hotel, comprising more than 1,400 pieces including photography, textile works, paintings, murals and ceramics, adding a uniquely Australian touch to Capella’s hospitality legacy.
BAR Studio’s designers always enjoy immersing themselves in the cultural scene, championing both local and international talents to promote exchange, and collaborating with expert curatorial art teams on the ground to create and commission pieces that truly reflect each location.
Here we celebrate some significant works across our global projects.
Zheng Lu – Rosewood Beijing (Completed 2015)
BAR Studio collaborated with Peking Art Associates, led by Emily de Wolfe Pettit, on art curation for luxury hotel Rosewood Beijing. Interiors showcase Chinese art including mesmerising stainless-steel heads by sculptor Zheng Lu, featuring laser-cut calligraphic characters from China’s oldest form of writing dating back to the Shang Dynasty — presenting a fascinating dialogue between ancient language and contemporary form.
“Zheng Lu’s work anchors the hotel’s broader cultural ambition: to ground luxury hospitality within a deeply considered dialogue with Chinese cultural heritage. Rather than deploying art merely as decoration, commissioned and placed works provoke genuine contemplation,” says Emily de Wolfe Pettit. “Set against BAR Studio's layered palette of bronze, leather and dark timber, the mirror-polished steel of Zheng Lu's work creates a compelling counterpoint – cool, precise and luminous where the interiors are warm and enveloping.”
Born in Inner Mongolia, Beijing-based Zheng Lu is best known for his gravity-defying steel sculptures of water splashes. Other inspirations include Chinese philosophy and calligraphy. His large-scale installations can be seen in public spaces from Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts to New York’s United Nations complex.
Zheng Lu’s stainless-steel head for the Rosewood Beijing. Photo by Durston Saylor.
John Young Zerunge – Grand Hyatt Hong Kong (completed 2016)
Black-and-white photographic prints by eminent Hong Kong-born Australian artist John Young Zerunge add a dynamic touch of nature to the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong’s guest rooms, renovated by BAR Studio. The bold, wall-mounted images capture the island’s lush landscapes, trees and waterfalls, creating connections to panoramic views of the verdant harbour city. The photos complement the contemporary interiors, while contrasting with more traditional oriental art.
In 2020, John Young Zerunge was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his contribution to the visual arts as an artist and painter. Young’s work can be found in major public and private galleries and museums, including the Guggenheim New York and M+ museum in Hong Kong. His solo exhibition A Changing Sky is at Melbourne's ARC ONE Gallery until 4 July 2026 and his work features in group show Inside the Mirage at Victoria’s TarraWarra Museum of Art until 1 November 2026.
A black-and-white image by John Young Zerunge adorns a wall of the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. Photo by Earl Carter.
Rone – The Westin Perth (completed 2018) AND THE LEGACY HOUSe (COMPLETED 2019)
Renowned Melbourne-based street artist Rone was commissioned to create a striking, 22-metre-high mural for the exterior of The Westin Perth. Located in the Hibernian Place precinct, the giant-scale, black-and-white artwork features one of Rone’s signature portraits, the hauntingly beautiful face of a woman, and serves as a focal point for the hotel’s Hay Street entrance.
BAR Studio also incorporated a floor-to-ceiling, monochrome Rone portrait of a soulful woman’s face as a backdrop within The Legacy House, luxury hotel Rosewood Hong Kong’s Cantonese restaurant. The space channels a sense of nostalgia, but it is also strongly contemporary, with the mural providing a modern counterpoint to rustic yet refined interiors.
“Rone’s practice grew out of a street art background, finding beauty in decay and embracing impermanence. Bringing his work to a luxury context more traditionally associated with the enduring and refined creates an interesting frisson,” says BAR Studio’s Co-Founder Stewart Robertson. Rone’s murals and installations animate spaces around the world, including commissions by leading institutions such as Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria.
A mural by Rone at The Legacy House restaurant at Rosewood Hong Kong. Photo by Edmon Leong.
Reko Rennie – The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne (completed 2023)
A vibrant commission by First Nations artist Reko Rennie anchors the arrival experience at The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne, integrating stylistic elements and techniques from graffiti and street art with his Kamilaroi heritage. A multidisciplinary artist, Reko Rennie explores his Aboriginal identity through contemporary media, merging traditional diamond-shaped designs, hand-drawn symbols, repeat patterns and camouflage motifs to create his own high-vis statements. His work has been shown from his hometown Melbourne to Berlin, Los Angeles, Delhi, Singapore and Shanghai, and was even projected onto Sydney Opera House’s sails.
Reko Rennie’s colourful, graphic painting at The Ritz-Carlton is one of several by acclaimed Indigenous artists on the ground-floor, where BAR Studio’s interior design pays homage to Melbourne’s cultural and creative diversity. BAR’s team worked closely with the curatorial team of Chapman & Bailey to select artworks that expressed the city’s layered stories.
Reko Rennie’s graphic artwork on the ground-floor of The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne. Photo by Peter Bennetts.
DR CHRISTIAN THOMPSON AO – The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne (completed 2023)
Part of the Flower Walls series, ‘Loom Aura 2’, a four-panel photographic print by Indigenous contemporary artist Dr Christian Thompson AO, also commands attention in The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne’s arrival area. A conceptual self-portrait, it shows the artist’s face semi-masked by Australian native flora in a powerful connection to country.
A Bidjara/Irish/Chinese Australian artist, Dr Christian Thompson’s practice spans photography, performance, sculpture, film and sound, often inhabiting imagined personas to engage with race, sexuality, gender, identity and memory. His work is held in major global institutions including the National Gallery of Australia and Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.
His video work Refuge (2014) is currently showing at London’s V&A South Kensington until 10 January 2027, as part of the Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific exhibition, foregrounding First Nations perspectives.
Four-panel print ‘Loom Aura 2’, by Dr Christian Thompson, at The Ritz-Carlton, Melbourne. Photo by Peter Bennetts.
ART COLLECTION – Capella Sydney (completed 2023)
A heritage conversion, BAR Studio’s interiors for luxury hotel Capella Sydney create an atmospheric arena for contemporary art.
Significant works by Waanyi artist Judy Watson line the walls of the hallway of the Loftus Street entrance. Commissioned by multidisciplinary studio Freeman Ryan Design (FRD), heritage interpretation consultant on the project, alongside other Indigenous art pieces, they interweave Sydney’s colonial history with the ancestral roots of the area’s First Nations peoples, original custodians of this coastal land.
Art curation by The Artling brings captivating layers of storytelling to the hotel’s public spaces and guest areas, with an extensive collection of Australian art in diverse media. Heightening the arrival experience, the ground-floor includes acquired and commissioned works by Australian artists Otis Hope Carey, Elise Cakebread and Georgia Bisley.
A breathtaking lighting installation by Dutch art studio DRIFT is the culmination of the arrival experience. Titled ‘Meadow’, the kinetic sculpture is DRIFT’s first in the Southern Hemisphere, and brings an otherworldly presence to Aperture, the building’s former courtyard turned hotel lobby and gathering space. Comprising 19 mechanised flower-like pendant lanterns with polyester-lined ‘petals’, the lights’ rhythmic dance and colour changes mimic Australian wildflowers in an inverted landscape. The moving flowers feature interactive sensors that respond to the presence and motion of visitors below.
Founded in 2007 by Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, Amsterdam-based studio DRIFT creates experimental sculptures, installations and performances. Transforming spaces, their artworks explore nature and technology through deconstructive, interactive and innovative processes, and have been exhibited in the Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum and Art Basel.
Floral lighting installation ‘Meadow’ by studio DRIFT at Capella Sydney. Photo by Timothy Kaye.
For more thought-provoking art, see our earlier Journal posts on the work of Elise Cakebread and Tomislav Topic.