Alan Skalaski & Chauncy Z

Alan Skalaski is a New Jersey based artist born and raised in the state. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, then spent three and a half years studying Dunhuang mural painting and experimental art as a Visiting Scholar at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. In 2023 he received a Master’s degree from China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. His work has been presented in international contexts such as the Yanhuang Art Museum, as well as the Austrian embassy and the Korean Cultural Center in Beijing. He traveled to Kazakhstan to participate in an international art symposium after which his work was collected by the National Museum of Kazakhstan.

Chauncy Z Marlowe is an artistic pseudonym used by Alan to differentiate his physical and digital identities. This concept had its origin in 2013, but became more conceptually fleshed out during the Charls Nixon project completed in 2016. This introspective analysis on one’s own identity is essential to Alan and Chauncy’s work, and conducive to their experiences as a foreigner in China. Their work exists in a double negative superposition of non native understanding.

During the pandemic, Alan returned to the US and began reflecting on the foreign community of Beijing, which Chauncy remotely watched drastically change. They have sought to draw parallels between the Chinese diaspora of New York, and the foreign diaspora of Beijing, which was the focus of Alan’s Master’s degree thesis. His experience as an artist and writer is unconventional and runs counter to the conventional experience of Asian youth who travel to the West for university education. This has allowed him to occupy a unique vantage point, with a deep understanding of Chinese educational systems, a Western cultural understanding, and the ability to communicate these cultural complexities in native English. Alan and Chauncy’s art and writing have been shaped by this unintentional experience, which continues its influence to the present.