Art residency x Carlton Arms New York

I had the pleasure of being invited by the Carlton Arms Hotel to participate in their artist residency in New York. Without hesitation, I packed my brushes and a few tubes of oil paint into a suitcase, and off I went, landing at JFK to spend a month in New York, during which I would paint one of the hotel rooms.

I began by preparing the room, choosing a base color and applying it everywhere. Then, I worked on sketches exploring themes of love, the body, and intimacy. A hotel room is a place where we curl up at night, where we recreate a sense of home and new memories. There is something almost magical about a hotel room—it quickly becomes a cocoon, yet its foreignness allows us to invent a new, temporary life.

All the characters in the room seem to emanate from it; they emerge from dreams or return from travels. You might encounter a painting by Ingres or Klimt, two lovers, the Iranian student Ahou Daryaei having a breakdown, or Ned, the hotel’s famous cat. They are all vampires, creatures I am particularly fond of, and a nod to a Banksy drawing in the hallway next to the room.

I want to thank the team at the Carlton Arms. In this hotel steeped in rock culture and freedom, they are the guardians of a temple I never expected to find in New York. Far from conventions and faux luxury, it’s a place where you feel good, and you never know whether you’ll stumble upon a moment, a concert, or Ned the cat.