Do Ask, Do Tell

From 21/09/2021 To 30/09/2021

Skyler Chen who was born in 1982, has been increasingly productive over the past five years on three different continents.

His work ranges from large acrylics on canvas, to oil on wood, prints, sculptures to video installations and children’s books illustrations. Several Brooklyn and Manhattan galleries as well as galleries in Taiwan ROC, PRC, and Malaysia and Singapore have displayed his work. Chen’s upcoming show, “Do Ask, Do Tell”, references the controversial policy of the Clinton administration instituted on February 28 of 1994. This policy prohibited discrimination and harassment towards serving LGBTQ U.S. military personnel as long as they remained quiet about their sexual orientation. These guidelines essentially told LGBTQ service members that they would only be safe if they stayed in the closet. This policy was not only stigmatizing those serving in the US military, but also the whole LGBTQ population far and wide. “Do Ask, Do Tell” depicts the emotional struggle of those who were asked to stay silent and their emotional transformations from secluded to coming out. The artworks on show display ambiguous figures in familiar scenes, projecting their queerness onto the objects surrounding them. The subjects depicted convey dreadful feelings and sensations of uneasiness while in the public, detaching their queerness from their person. Anxious and scared, the figures inhabiting the canvases are just desiring self-acceptance.