Mercer Hotel — Room 666

Mercer Hotel — Room 666 is a painting series by Brazilian multidisciplinary artist Tarik Mendes, inspired by The Mercer Hotel in SoHo, New York City. Created as a collection of intimate 12 × 12 inch (30.5 × 30.5 cm) works, the series explores atmosphere, memory, intimacy, texture, and the transient nature of spaces we temporarily inhabit.

Located in the heart of SoHo, The Mercer Hotel provides the setting and conceptual framework for the series. Room 666becomes more than a physical location—it serves as a point of departure for exploring the traces, impressions, and layered experiences that can become attached to a particular place.

Net Screen, Layering & Material

Rather than working on traditional canvas, Mendes constructs these paintings using his distinctive Net Screen process. The open, permeable structure of the screen becomes both the support and an active element within each composition.

Paint and material are gradually built across the net screen, allowing imagery and texture to develop through accumulation. Layers overlap, obscure, reveal, and interact with the underlying grid. Areas of transparency sit beside denser passages of paint, creating surfaces that shift between image and object.

The process allows light, shadow, texture, and physical depth to become part of the work. From a distance, an image may appear unified; at closer range, the construction of the painting becomes visible through the screen, individual marks, layered material, and openings within the surface.

Through this process, Mercer Hotel — Room 666 transforms the atmosphere of a New York hotel room into a series of tactile, layered images—works that consider how places can hold fragments of presence, absence, memory, and experience.

Artwork dimensions: 12 × 12 in. / 30.5 × 30.5 cm
Medium: Mixed media on Net Screen
Artist: Tarik Mendes
Series: Mercer Hotel — Room 666
Location: SoHo, New York City