“Hotel of Happiness” at the Flint Park Gallery, Brooklyn Paintings by Annika Connor and Teodor Dumitrescu Written by Evan Sung Images courtesy the artists

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New York Cool tracked down the two artists, who keep a permanent pied-a-terre in the Presidential Suite of the Hotel of Happiness, to ask them a bit about their work and the themes at play.

NYC: What role does nostalgia play in your works? Both of you seem to refer to a past moment, either in content or style. Is it nostalgia?

Annika C: My work deals with moments of joy remembered. These paintings depict happiness and beauty that is recaptured and then presented to the audience. I intend for them to function as triggers for the viewer's imagination. There is a sense of removal in these works because it begins with photography. Therefore, there is a romance in the image that can be interpreted as nostalgic…Though many of these paintings have figures as a central element in the piece, they are not intended to serve as portraits of an individual, but rather as portraits of a moment in time.   

Vacant - Teodor Dumitrescu

Teodor D: My work is nostalgic in the very literal sense that it's a return to a painful past, or a painful return to past experiences. The images are of familiar ephemera, but any sentimentality the moment once held has been drained or trudged over by the current of history. The individuals and locations depicted become ghosts.

NYC: Both works/styles, though very different and unique, also seem to refer to photography. Annika, I know that this is part of your way of working. Teodor, is this something you play with also? What, for each of you, is the relationship between painting and photography, particularly for painters of our generation weaned on visual mechanical imagery?

AC: Like most complex love affairs, my relationship between painting and photography is hard to define. I use photography as a tool for image making. The camera becomes my butterfly net, capturing moments that cannot be recreated in the studio. The magic comes for me when I reinterpret my initial image; it is then that I am representing the daydream in an encounter, the romance in remembering. I also use photography to play with the viewer in the painting. It allows me to literally put the audience in the painting by letting the viewer see through my eyes. An example of this is in the series of table paintings: I’ve introduced the audience to my moment and now the subject I was once eating and engaging with, is indirectly dining with my viewer. This is a playful and inexpensive way for me to take my audience to lunch.

Love Song - Annika Connor

TD: The mediation of imagery is apparent in the work. To me there is no such thing as an unadulterated image. We as human beings have a very selective frame of reference and this transfers over to photography and other mechanical means of transcribing a moment in time. By working from photos we create several degrees of separation between reality and the work of art.

3 – Why Hotel of Happiness? Where does that come from? Or what is it in reference to?

AC: The Hotel of Happiness… what a great space for your imagination to go on vacation!  I am hanging out in the plaza, by the pool, having fruity cocktails at the Hotel of Happiness. I like the way the title has created a new space to play, a room for my imagination to inhabit.

The Hotel of Happiness had enough vacancies for both Teodor and I to check out a suite. It gave us the freedom to present work to the audience that compliments one another while at the same time is open enough to create a dialogue between the art.

TD: Hotel of Happiness makes reference to a temporary place of intimacy. Annika's work is explicitly happy while mine is implicitly longing for happiness.

4 – The setting for the exhibition is really intimate and engaging. What appeals to each of you about the salon-style gallery-residence exhibition?

AC: When you exhibit in a home, people feel content to relax and hang around for a while. The opening becomes like a house party where most people stay for an hour or more. There are couches people can settle on, chairs to recline in, which allows the viewer to be comfortable while the art comes to them at a relaxed pace.

5 – How long have you been working together/known each other? I know there was one piece that resulted from a collaboration [“Phantasmagoria”]. How was that to work on? Are there more collaborations to come?

AC: Teodor and I met in 1999 when we were both students in an Ethics class at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At the time we were really into philosophy, so with the guidance of a fabulous professor, a troupe of eight of us formed a philosophy group. For the next three years we would meet every other week to discuss readings and exchange ideas.

Years later, after graduating, we started exhibiting together when we got the chance. The collaborations were a first-time experiment we did for this show. As it was a hotel themed exhibit, and a two-person show, we thought working together on few pieces could be a fun way to bring a third and sexy element to the exhibition.

TD: In regards to the collaborative work, we exchange ideas and work pretty well together despite our stylistic differences. I bury the bodies and Annika plants the flowers. I think we'll continue to work together.

NYC: That is…an…evocative image! What’s next for you two?

AC: Fun things will be happening in Los Angeles this summer, and details regarding events in LA will be revealed in the next few months. As for me privately, it is just back to the studio for now. I have some new large oil paintings in the works that are currently demanding my attention.

TD: I'll be showing in April at Space 237 in Toledo, Ohio and at Art Chicago with Zolla/Lieberman Gallery(April 29th -May 2nd).

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