Visual Artist Paul Branton

The Chicago Painter Takes Us Inside His Mind’s Eye With Illustrated Language.

- Latoya Cross

SOMBER SUBJECTS FLOAT IN POOLS of bold yellows, reds, greens and blues in the visual compositions created by Chicago painter Paul Branton.

For Branton, 43, color is “a relationship and a conversation that’s going back and forth between me and my work.” His attraction to the juxtaposition of boisterous hues and complex subject matters was birthed from working through personal pain.

“It was kind of a therapy,” says Branton, who is also a poet and filmmaker. “I would take these bright elaborate colors to make [pictures] pretty. Not using any white or black in my paintings, I had to use color in a different way to reflect light and shadow. It really became part of me.”

Add to that the vibrancy, complexities and various communities that make up his Chicago hometown, and Branton’s canvases blossom into stories that explore and investigate Black culture, hip-hop and jazz. The deep appreciation and incorporation of music in his paintings come as compliments to his late father, an avid record collector, and his mother, a “big” Motown fan.