Imitation of Life — Skyler Chen

Opening: Saturday, 6 June 2026

Venue: Casa Masaccio | centro per l'arte contemporanea

Casa Masaccio hosts Skyler Chen's first solo institutional exhibition in Italy. Curated by Marta Papini in collaboration with the gallery MASSIMODECARLO, the show challenges Western painting conventions by introducing disruptive elements into classical pictorial structures.

At first glance Chen's canvases evoke fifteenth-century painting through considered composition and proportional realism. Yet the artist injects incongruous details — texts, enlargements, everyday objects — that fracture classical harmony and create an uneasy tension: familiar imagery becomes a carrier of memory, desire and identity.

• Curator: Marta Papini
• Collaboration: MASSIMODECARLO
• Main themes: linear perspective, multiple viewpoints, queer Asian identity and diaspora
• Artist: Skyler Chen, born 1982 in Kaohsiung (Taiwan), lives and works in Rotterdam

Chen blends classicism with contemporary references: his compositions feature enigmatic figures and domestic objects — magazines, food items, birds — that take on symbolic weight. Rather than providing definitive answers, the works offer fragments of a broader narrative that unsettle the single viewpoint historically reinforced by linear perspective.

Chen's paintings are held in major public and private collections, and his practice addresses belonging, solitude and queer visibility in conservative cultural contexts.

Visitor information

• Opening date: 2026-06-06
• Curated by Marta Papini; in collaboration with MASSIMODECARLO
• Contents: contemporary painting engaging Renaissance pictorial conventions; identity-focused themes
• Practical details and opening hours: check Casa Masaccio's official channels