Breaking Chains Through Art – An Interview with Aeron Brown
By Cindy Powell
Aeron Brown knows a thing or two about the healing power of art. A professional artist for the past decade, Aeron started painting and creating as a way of dealing with his own loss.
“My father was an artist and when I was three he passed away. He left behind paintings, sketches, all kinds of songs he wrote, and my mom put them all away in a closet to deal with her grief. I would take his things out of her closet and hide them in my own closet. When I was in high school I started taking out pieces of his work and by cutting them up I created my own form of artwork and collage.”
Aeron’s use of collage started as a way of connecting with his father, but the practice has become a signature in his work and Aeron continues to use an element of collage in most of his paintings to this day.
After going through a few years of inactivity with his art, Aeron started doing live paintings in church as an expression of worship. His first live painting was a divine setup that God used to reveal the power of art in restoring lives. Aeron tells the story this way:
“I asked God what I should paint because I didn’t want to do it apart from Him. I saw a hand holding a treasure chest, and there was a key opening the treasure chest. I thought that was such a lame image! I thought it was cheesy and dumb, to be honest, but I really believed it was what God wanted me to paint that night.” Aeron painted the image he saw. “That night this lady who had been going through a lot of stuff, came up to me afterward. She was really broken and didn’t want to be in church that night. She had given God an ultimatum because she didn’t want to do this whole God and church thing unless He showed her He was real. When she found out a painter would be painting live, she told God that if the artist painted a treasure chest being unlocked, then she would believe. It was crazy—and