Now through March 30, Hannah Traore Gallery at 150 Orchard Street by Stanton Street on the Lower East Side plays host to “It Doesn’t Have to Make Sense,” the debut exhibit by 25-year-old actor, activist, model and artist Chella Man.
As made clear across the various paintings, drawings and writeups featured in the show, Man embodies what many might consider the very essence of New York City’s multiculturalism: the artist, queer and deaf, is of both Chinese and Jewish descent.
“Growing up in a conservative town in central Pennsylvania–attending schools where creative expression was not prioritized–Man’s first encounter with art making was through the pen and paper on his desk,” reads an official press release. “Before Man had the language to articulate his experience of living as a disabled, queer, person of color, drawing became a fluid vocabulary that gave voice to the confusion, abstraction, intuition, identity, and self-love he was, and continues to be, in pursuit of.”
From a self-portrait to a sketchbook page in which the artist describes his version of god (“she is a gay black queen”), the works on display are mostly made using black ink on white paper, a style that’s been Man’s own since he first started drawing, one reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy.
“I am an artist living as a cyborg, committed to sharing the frameworks I’ve designed upon routinely discarding projected assumptions and binary beliefs,” Man said in an official statement. “As a deaf, trans, Chinese, and Jewish artist, language has never granted me full fulfillment. I create visuals and integrative experiences in order to free myself by questioning: How can I create a space of liberation within a culture that doesn’t believe I am worthy of safety and freedom?”
Man is currently also working on a live performance piece “exploring his bodily autonomy through the lens of the medical industrial complex” alongside the Jewish Museum. Dubbed “Autonomy,” the show will premiere at Performance Space New York on May 2.
