Jordan Casteel facts for kids

Jordan Casteel (born 1989) is an American artist known for her colorful and detailed paintings of people. She often paints portraits of her friends, family, and people she meets in her neighborhood in New York City, where she lives and works.

Early Life and Schooling

Jordan Casteel was born in 1989 in Denver, Colorado. Her family has a history of important community leaders. Her grandfather was Whitney Young, who led the National Urban League, an organization that works for the rights of African Americans. A close family friend, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., later led the same group, and Jordan was named after him.

Growing up, Casteel was inspired by famous artists like Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, and Jacob Lawrence. Their work helped shape her own artistic style.

For college, Casteel first went to Agnes Scott College in Georgia, graduating in 2011. She also studied art in Italy. Later, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the prestigious Yale School of Art in 2014.

Art Career

After finishing her studies at Yale, Casteel moved to New York City to become a full-time painter. Her paintings quickly gained attention.

First Art Shows

In 2014, Casteel had her first solo art show in New York, called Visible Man. The show featured large paintings of men in their own homes. Her goal was to show them in a personal and thoughtful way, exploring their personalities.

A year later, she was chosen for a special program at The Studio Museum in Harlem. This program gave her a studio space and support to create new art.

Her next solo show, Brothers (2015), featured paintings of two people together. One art expert praised her work, saying she made her subjects seem real and magnetic through her use of texture and perspective.

Gaining Fame

By 2017, Casteel was becoming well-known in the art world. Her show Nights in Harlem featured paintings of people in their city surroundings. The show received great reviews. Art critic Jerry Saltz wrote that Casteel was ready "to take a rightful place on the front lines of contemporary painting."

In 2019, the Denver Art Museum hosted her first major museum exhibition. It included about 30 of her paintings created over four years.

Major Achievements

In 2020, Casteel's career reached new heights. She was asked to paint a portrait of fashion designer Aurora James for the cover of Vogue magazine. That same year, her first major solo show in a New York museum, titled Jordan Casteel: Within Reach, opened at the New Museum.

In 2021, she received a MacArthur Fellowship, often called a "genius grant." This is a very important award given to talented people in the United States.

Her work continues to be shown in major museums. In 2022, her paintings were part of an exhibition called Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Themes and Style in Her Art

Casteel's paintings explore what it means to be human. She almost always paints Black subjects. She uses her art to share stories about people's lives and identities.

A key part of her style is her bold use of color. She paints people's skin in many different shades, like green, blue, or orange, depending on the light in the room. This makes her paintings vibrant and full of life. She takes photographs of her subjects first, which she then uses as a reference for her paintings.

Her style has been compared to famous artists like Jacob Lawrence and Henri Matisse. Like New York artist Alice Neel, she is known for her powerful portraits that seem to capture a person's inner self.

Casteel wants her art to make people think. In an interview, she said, "The intent of the paintings is to expose my vision of black men as a sister, daughter, friend and lover... 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

Besides being an artist, Casteel is also a teacher. She is an Assistant Professor of Painting at Rutgers University - Newark in New Jersey.

Personal Life

Casteel lives in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City with her husband, David Schulze, who is a photographer. She has a health condition called lupus, which she has said was challenging while she was in school.

Exhibitions

Casteel has had her art shown in many galleries and museums across the United States. Some of her important solo shows include:

• Visible Man (2014), Sargent's Daughters Gallery, New York
• Jordan Casteel: Harlem Notes (2017), Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, North Carolina
• Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze (2019–2020), Denver Art Museum
• The Baayfalls (2019–2022), High Line, New York
• Jordan Casteel: Within Reach (2020), New Museum, New York
• Jordan Casteel A Presentation of Works (2025), Ely House, London

Notable Works in Public Collections

You can find Casteel's paintings in the permanent collections of many famous museums.