Brandon Carlton: the undercommons
@ Arts Incubator
301 E Garfield Blvd, Chicago, IL 60637
Opening Friday, April 18th, from 6PM - 8PM
On view through Sunday, August 31st
Arts + Public Life presents the undercommons, the first solo exhibition by painter Brandon Carlton. Opening on April 18, 2025, the exhibition explores the complexities of contemporary Black life through Carlton’s distinct approach to stylized figuration. Drawing influence from Alex Katz, David Hockney, and Jordan Casteel, his work engages with portraiture and spatial composition to evoke intimacy, distance, presence, and longing. Exhibition gallery hours begin on April 24.
Carlton’s paintings consider the undercommons as a site of fugitive sociality—an ungovernable space where collective life unfolds beyond dominant structures. His figures occupy liminal environments, neither fully contained nor entirely free, reflecting a continuous negotiation of belonging, agency, and historical memory. Inspired by Casteel’s attention to everyday Black life and the layered surfaces of Katz and Hockney, Carlton’s work reimagines the aesthetics of presence, using gesture, color, and space to suggest ways of seeing and being that resist fixed narratives.
the undercommons runs through August 31 and will be on view during gallery hours, Thursday through Saturday, 1-5 PM
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Tags: Arts + Public Life, Arts Incubator, Brandon Carlton, Brandon Carlton: the undercommons, Chicago, The Undercommons, Washington Park
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