Skyler Chen

Skyler Chen’s “Republic of Norman” opened March 18th at Doma Cafe and Gallery in the West Village. Chen’s characters show distress in their sad eyes and droopy mouths. Many of his paintings feature young men and woman in red and white striped party hats with smeared, tired looking clown make-up on their lips. The titles are, “Unspoken Words,” “Eyes That Know Me,” “Til Kingdom Come,” among others.

I particularly liked “Isolated,” which showed a young girl with long brow hair looking very much alone. At first glance she seemed to have a chunk of her head missing, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a small bowler hat that blended into the dark background.

While some of the images were sloppy, there were other gems in Chen’s work. My roommate loved the picture below, though the title escapes me.