Jordan Casteel’s (b. 1989, Denver, CO) figurative portraits and landscapes alike reveal our underlying temperaments with gestural brushwork and bold swaths of color. From the New York City subway and the streets of Harlem to the woodlands of Upstate New York, Casteel foregrounds the people of color who share in a collective experience through a vantage point of self-reflection.

Casteel received her BA from Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA for Studio Art (2011) and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2014). The artist was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2021. In 2020, Casteel presented a solo exhibition titled Within Reach at the New Museum, New York, presented in conjunction with a fully illustrated catalogue published by the New Museum including interviews and essays by Thelma Golden, Dawoud Bey, Lauren Haynes, and Amanda Hunt. Casteel’s work has recently been included in exhibitions at institutions such as The Brooklyn Museum, NY (2024); The National Portrait Gallery, London (2024); The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MoCA) (2023); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2023); The Modern, Fort Worth (2022); The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (ICA) (2022); Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN (2021); The Art Institute of Chicago, IL (2021); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) (2021); San Francisco Museum of Art, CA (SFMOMA) (2020); and MCA Chicago, IL (2020).

In 2019, High Line Art commissioned a larger-than-life mural of The Baayfalls (2017). Other public art projects include Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY (2021) and Public Art Fund, New York, NY (2020). Also in 2019, an exhibition of Casteel’s work titled Returning the Gaze traveled from The Denver Art Museum, CO to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, CA. Casteel’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (MoMA); the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY;The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, CA (MOCA); San Francisco Museum of Art, CA (SFMOMA); Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL (PAMM); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Denver Art Museum, CO; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; and Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, CA. Casteel lives and works in New York.