While colorful, the colors are not relevant to the puzzle. The first words of each painting say as much: "The colors are there just to look pretty. However, some searching will reveal that the eight artists are all topologists (or slightly altered names thereof). This hints that the images are not just "art", but are also graphs. In fact, they are all topologically equivalent to maps of neighborhoods in eight American cities.
The cities correspond to the homes of the institutions at which the topologists teach: Boston (Boston University), Philadelphia (Penn), San Francisco (USF), Cambridge (MIT), New York (Columbia), Providence (Brown), Chicago (Chicago), and Honolulu (UH-Mānoa). Some of these cities have multiple definitions for neighborhood; the titles contain hints as to which map you should use. For instance, the "Just Authority" in Boston's hints at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and "To Analyze a Plan" hints at the Planning Analysis Sections for Philadelphia.
BostonPhiladelphia
San Francisco
Cambridge
New York
Providence
Chicago
Honolulu