Dorian Sylvain is a Chicago painter and muralist, but she is so much more. She is writing history with a paint brush, preserving a culture with colors and patterns, and inspiring communities with textures and scenic designs. And still, she is so much more.
She is an art educator, collaborating with children and communities to elevate neighborhood aesthetics and foster shared understanding. Dorian is one of the most sought-after artists in Chicago. She has engaged in public art/mural projects which have been commissioned by or in partnership with organizations such as the South Side Community Art Center, Hyde Park Art Center, National Museum of Mexican Art, DuSable Museum, Chicago Park District and the Chicago Public Art Group, to engage in studio and mural work. In addition to that work, over the past four decades, Dorian has led public art projects that empower communities.
She grew up on Chicago’s South Side, and that’s where she received much of her artistic training, it’s where she raised her three sons, and where she received her first grant at the age of twenty-one to create a free art program at a local library. As a young artist, she was influenced by other Black artists and the Black theater. There she gained her foundation as a designer and artistic collaborator. She also worked with leading Black playwrights and a diverse array of artistic members of the Black Arts Movement. This experience helped her understand “artist as citizen,” and inspired her commitment to connecting community to the arts.
Because of her variety of artistic experiences, she developed a proficient level of skill in drafting, carpentry, model making, and decorative painting.
Years later, her outstanding work was recognized by the University of Chicago and the Southeast Commission who awarded her an “Arts & Culture: Connecting Communities to the Arts” award.
Dorian Sylvain was awarded by 3Arts (Chicago nonprofit supporting artists) in their Awards and Next Level programs.
Her project “We Outside: Murals Made with Dorian Sylvain” at the Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago, consisted of community workshops. Creative material that young people participated in was displayed. Her commitment to mentoring young artists, exposing them to the art of making art and involving them in the public art process is a priority. With the objective of building the next generation of culture keepers, she has successfully mentored many young people, including her own three sons who work by her side as designers, managers, photographers, and painters on large scale public projects.
She and her sons founded “Mural Moves,” a campaign designed to train and connect young artists to public arts opportunities through fellowships and internships.
Allow me to introduce you to Dorian Sylvain’s sons:
Kahari Blackburn is Chicago-born visual artist who loves both analog and digital visual mediums.
He is currently obsessed with paper collage and simple, flat, round children’s book–style illustration. He is a part of both the Mural Moves Paint crew, which has designed and installed many large-scale murals over the city of Chicago, as well as an active part of Natty Bwoy Bikes & Boards, a free weekly youth program that leads and teaches skateboarding and basic bicycle mechanics to kids on the South Side.
Kari Blackburn is an illustrator whose studio practice includes graphic design, children’s books, and public murals. Much of his work addresses today’s socio-political climate, the black ethereal, Afrofuturism, and color theory. As a core member and lead designer of Mural Moves (artist Co-op), Kari is focused on amplifying the voices of a new generation here in Chicago.
Katon Blackburn is a die-hard skate rat who is also passionate about photography and filmmaking. Over the past few years, his love for community building and documentation has kept him busy working on a project called Natty Bwoy Chicago, a free weekly youth skateboard lesson in Kenwood Park.
These apples did not fall far from the tree.
Dorian and her three sons recently spoke at the exhibition Gary Simmons: Public Enemy, a series of MCA programs that activated Gary Simmon’s sculptural installation work, Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark. She recently held an artist talk and book signing in celebration of her first solo exhibition in two decades, “Raised in it!” where she discussed the arc of her creative practice and the historical antecedents including the Great Migration, the Civil Rights era and the Black Arts Movement that made it possible. She also looks toward the future, exploring the broader initiative that “Raised in It!” begins: a future HBCU Public Arts Tour. In this dream project, she envisions collaborating with students across Historically Black Colleges and Universities to create campus-based murals that center cultural memory, activism, and imagination.
As we go through the streets of Chicago, looking at the colorful and creative murals that beautify our communities, we think of the artist whose talent and commitment to family, art, and community crafted these works of art. Thank you, Dorian Sylvain, for keeping the culture in our communities.
