Spa Day at Taft Hotel
In Spa Day at Taft Hotel, Troy Hul Arnold renders a tender moment of reinvention and resilience set within the familiar confines of a NYCHA housing unit in upper East section of Manhattan’s (Spanish) Harlem, where he and his partner Elise Mascia once lived. The piece transforms an ordinary, dimly lit bathroom into a makeshift sanctuary—a self-fashioned spa nestled within the pewter-hued, overpainted walls typical of public housing.

Amid the cluttered arrangement of beauty products—many of which belonged to extended family members who had once occupied the apartment—the scene foregrounds a quiet act of self-care and mutual care. Multiple toothbrushes line a cup sat under the mirror of a sink, none belonging to the couple, a subtle yet powerful symbol of inherited space and intergenerational imprint. Elise stands at the center of the composition, framed by the intimacy of the setting, while Arnold stands behind her, not just as a partner, but as an observer of transformation.

With a title that wryly reimagines a luxury hotel experience, Spa Day at Taft Hotel speaks to the human capacity to find beauty, love, and ritual even within scarcity. It is a portrait of two people making do—and making meaning—within the often-overlooked realities of urban life. Through this act of witnessing, Arnold elevates the everyday into something transcendent.