LONDON.- Thaddaeus Ropac welcomed Jordan Casteel to the gallery and join Casey Kaplan gallery in representing her. The first presentation of new paintings will be in the London gallery this April, and her first full solo exhibition in Europe will take place in the Paris gallery in 2026.


Discover the nuances of Black representation: This book, published for Casteel's major New Museum show, features 40 large-scale paintings and insightful essays. Buy today and experience her unique perspective.


Jordan Casteel stands out in her generation of painters for her extraordinary acuteness of observation, and empathetic treatment of her subjects. A magnetic sense of proximity and directness defines her painterly approach, as she intimately captures their humanity and personal spheres. She questions how to be seen and how to represent, reflecting on interconnectedness, belonging and identity. — Thaddaeus Ropac

Renowned for her bold, larger-than-life compositions that combine luminescent colour with sinuous, intricately detailed brushwork, Casteel collects impressions of her communities and the vibrant displays of humanity she encounters there. Whether tracing the textures and topographies of her neighbourhood or the natural ebb and flow of her surroundings, she makes visible her fleeting observations of daily life, and conveys a kinship with her landscape. Denver-born and New York–based, Casteel draws on her own interest in anthropology and sociology, as well as the work of figurative painters including Alice Neel and Bob Thompson for her intimate studies.

By reflecting on both her inner and outer worlds, painting allows an exploration of ideas pertaining to interconnectedness and her own identity. ‘Through painting, I have the opportunity to honor the landscape of my life and all the people who have played a huge part in it,’ she says. As Casteel’s settings change, so do the landscapes she honours. Her subjects – who are always a direct reflection of the communities she inhabits – often return the artist’s gaze. Enriched with captivating detail, their stolen glances or interlaced hands are rendered with the same painterly care as the subtleties of their environments. Authentic connections with the members of her community provide the foundation for authentic image-making. She forgoes the formality of the traditional studio sitting, ‘meeting people where they are as opposed to asking them to enter my space’, initially capturing her subjects photographically in the places she discovers them.

As sections of the painting begin to build, the weight starts to tell the story, pulling and building, with fields of colour on the canvas that are sometimes almost topographical maps on somebody's face or in their hands... Painting becomes a tool to get people to see the multiplicity of ourselves: our sadness, our joy, our love, our loss, our moments of stillness, the moments that don’t get heard. — Jordan Casteel

Jordan Casteel’s work is housed in the collections of international museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Her most recent solo exhibition was at the Hill Art Foundation, New York, in 2024. Public commissions include The Baayfalls (2019), a 1,400-square-foot mural on New York’s High Line. Having been included in numerous exhibitions at major US institutions over the past decade, Casteel’s work will be on view from next month in the touring exhibition The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure at North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, which travelled from the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2024 and Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2024–25.


Artdaily participates in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. When you purchase through our links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These commissions help us continue curating and sharing the art world’s latest news, stories, and resources with our readers.