Painted & Photographed by J. Ray Paradiso
A confessed outsider, Chicago’s J. Ray Paradiso is an award-winning artist who holds graduate degrees in both Business Administration and Philosophy. A recovering academic, Paradiso is an experiMENTAL writer, painter and street photographer.
Inspired by American street photojournalists, Garry Winogrand and Vivian Maier, Paradiso’s paintings and photographs have been shown in theatres such as the Chicago Apollo Theater, Greenhouse Theater Company, Lifeline Theater, Raven Theater and the Theater Wit.
Paradiso’s paintings, photographs and writing have been featured in literary journals such as Stoneboat, Into the Void, After Hours, The Chicago Quarterly Review, the Muses’ Gallery at Highland Park Poetry, Front Porch Review, Wonderbook of Poetry, and so on. Paradiso is a contest winner for Two Sisters Magazine for playscript: The Measure of Love. He has won awards from Silver Needle Press, Multiple Personalities, The Raw Art Review and Heisenberg for submission of single work photographs.