Jordan Casteel

Jordan Casteel (born 1989) is an American figurative painter. She typically paints portraits of friends and family members as well as neighbors and strangers in Harlem and New York. Casteel lives and works in New York City.

Early life and education Casteel was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1989 to Lauren Young Casteel and Charles Casteel. She has a twin brother and an older brother. She was named after Vernon E. Jordan Jr, who succeeded her grandfather Whitney Young as head of the National Urban League and was a close family friend. Her grandmother was Margaret Buckner Young, an educator and children's-book author.

Artists Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Faith Ringgold, Charles White, and Jacob Lawrence were significant influences while growing up. She participated in several group exhibitions while at Yale, including 13 Artists, a historic show curated by then-classmate Awol Erizku.

Work After graduating from Yale, Casteel moved to New York City to pursue painting. Her first solo exhibition in New York, titled Visible Man, opened in August 2014 at Sargent's Daughters. The show featured several large-scale paintings depicting mostly nude black men seated in various spaces throughout their homes. The show explored the balance between sexuality and sensuality, both in her subjects and the viewers. The program gives artists a year-long studio space, fellowship grant, stipend for materials, and group exhibition that includes all of the artists-in-residence.

Casteel's second solo exhibition, titled Brothers, opened in October 2015 at Sargent's Daughters. The show contained eight large-scale paintings of dual-portraits and were produced as part of a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's “Process Space” on Governor's Island. Curator Johanna Fateman reviewed the work favorably, noting of Casteel's figures that, "she achieves their diorama-like magnetism with subtle perspectival distortions and a synergy of textures."

Casteel's third solo exhibition, Nights in Harlem, opened at Casey Kaplan in September 2017. The show continued her exploration of black male subjectivity but positioned her subjects in "complex interiors and urban environments." The show was met with critical praise; in New York magazine, critic Jerry Saltz wrote, "Casteel seems prepared to take a rightful place on the front lines of contemporary painting," and writer Tausif Noor wrote in Artforum, "Casteel navigates her terrain with ease, lightness, and empathy."

Casteel's first major solo exhibition at a museum was at the Denver Art Museum opened in February 2019. It features approximately thirty paintings spanning over four years from 2014 to 2018, where she portrayed several subjects from her neighborhood in Harlem.

In 2020, Casteel painted a portrait of fashion designer Aurora James for one of the September 2020 covers of Vogue magazine. Jordan Casteel: Within Reach, her first major New York City museum solo show, opened in February 2020 at the New Museum. In 2021, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Casteel's work was included in the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The painting Lourdes and Katrina (2019) is featured in the permanent collection of Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Themes and style

Casteel's practice explores humanity, sexuality, identity, and subjectivity. She has almost exclusively painted black subjects, often in varying skin tones based on the light surrounding the sitter from the photographs she takes of her sitters. Subjects have been painted in varying shades of browns, greys, lime greens, navy blues, and light oranges.

Casteel's painterly approach and bold use of color have been compared to painters Jacob Lawrence, Nancy Spero, and Henri Matisse. Casteel's figurative works have also been compared to New York artist Alice Neel.

Casteel's work comes from photographs she takes of her subjects. She aims to nudge the viewer's thoughts considering what meaning lies behind being a black man in the U.S. today. In an interview with studio international, Jordan stated, "The intent of the paintings is to expose my vision of black men as a sister, daughter, friend and lover. That perspective is one full of empathy and love. I see their humanity and, in turn, I want the audience to engage with them as fathers, sons, brothers, cousins – as individuals with their own unique stories to share."

Teaching Casteel is an Assistant Professor of Painting in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media at Rutgers University - Newark.

Personal life Casteel lives in Harlem with her husband David Schulze, an Australian-born photographer she met on the dating app Raya. Jordan Casteel: Harlem Notes (2017), Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, North Carolina; Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze (2019–2020), originating at the Denver Art Museum; The Baayfalls (2019–2022), High Line, New York; Jordan Casteel: Within Reach (2020), New Museum, New York; and Jordan Casteel A Presentation of Works (2025), Thaddaeus Ropac, London.

Notable works in public collections

The Baayfalls (2017), Museum of Modern Art, New York Kevin the Kiteman (2017), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Memorial (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Flight (2018), Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, California Ourlando (2018), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas Shirley (Spa Boutique2go) (2018), Rollins Museum of Art, Winter Park, Florida Sylvia's (Taniedra, Kendra, Bedelia, Crizette, De'Sean) (2018), Denver Art Museum Lourdes and Katrina (2019), Pérez Art Museum Miami Barack (2020), Art Institute of Chicago Chano Pozo (2021), Whitney Museum, New York Yvonne and James II (2021), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York