Standard King , 2026

Photographer Marcelo Mayen stages a surreal motel scene, exploring corporate burnout and the alienation of feeling like lonely in an anonymous, generic space. Because Marcelo typically creates and dresses his own sets, he is extremely particular when photographing a location he hasn’t designed himself. For this image, he obsessively searched for motels until finding one with exactly the look he had envisioned.

For Standard King, that familiar motel room becomes a stage for something else: the exhaustion and absurdity of American work culture. A businessman stands rigidly on the bed, briefcase still in hand, caught somewhere between arriving, leaving, working, and completely losing his mind. Do you think he chose to stand on the bed, or was he forced to?

Like a lot of Marcelo's work, this was shot on a medium format Hasselblad X2D 100c camera and a 28mm wide lens. Marcelo chose a wide lens to evoke a feeling of isolation, and the high-angle composition gives the photograph a voyeuristic point of view.

Like much of Marcelo’s work, the photograph disrupts reality just enough. The situation is absurd, but the feeling behind it is strangely familiar.

The work is printed on fine art paper and presented in a museum-quality frame made from wood imported from Italy, with 99% UV-protective museum glass. At 32x24 inches, its scale, color, and sculptural presence make it a powerful statement piece for a residential or commercial collection.