Hotels are usually advertised as a luxurious means of escape. A place where you don’t have to make your bed and clean, neatly folded towels appear while you are out as if by magic. But they can also be places of desolation and despair. Where a cast-out husband goes to sort out his life, where the traveling salesman spends countless hours missing his family. In his Hotel series, San Francisco artist Jeffrey Palladini explores the intimacies of this microcosm of life.
Pool #10, oil and charcoal on wood, 55×37
When I first spotted Palladini’s work at the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, I was immediately drawn to his quiet expanses of solid color. The simplicity of his palette adds to the somber, isolated feeling in some of the work.
A Late Morning, oil and charcoal on wood, 13×9
Missing Our Reservations, oil and charcoal on wood, 13×9
The Highlights, oil and charcoal on wood, 13×9
Then there’s the flip side of hotel visits– when all is fun and irresponsibility. Staying up late, sleeping in, lounging around the pool doing nothing at all. The anticipation of what might happen and memories you might make. In showing us glimpses of his subjects from behind, we voyeuristically gaze, wondering which kind of hotel scene we’ve stumbled upon.
Pool #8, oil and charcoal on wood, 37×25
If you’d like to see more of Jeffrey Palladini’s work, please visit his website. I hope you love this work as much as I do. Seriously it was like a scene from a hotel bar.. I spotted it across a crowded room.. 😉
All images are via the artist’s website.
