dolphinhotel

2005
9-panel painting
ink and acrylic on paper and wood

Dolphinhotel’s structure comes from a Scandinavian postcard of a time-lapsed arc of the midnight sun in 9 slivers, the sun mirrored in the sea below. The foreboding black ornamentation is a stylized version of the Madonna Inn, an odd hotel in San Luis Obispo that is something like my spiritual home. The 24 inset circle illustrations rise and set across the piece, mirroring one another.

The title refers to a hotel that appears in two Haruki Murakami novels, but this piece is not a book illustration. It’s more about trying to tap into that indefinable, weird, murky strangeness that liminal spaces like novels and hotels provide.