Jordan Casteel has joined Thaddaeus Ropac in a deal that will see her also remain with Casey Kaplan, the latter which has represented the American painter since 2016. She will debut a suite of new paintings in Ropac’s London space in April to mark her first exhibition with the gallery. Next year, her first solo show in Europe is slated to appear in its Paris location.
“Jordan Casteel stands out in her generation of painters for her extraordinary acuteness of observation, and empathetic treatment of her subjects,” Thaddaeus Ropac said in a statement. “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.”
Casteel, who was born in 1989 and is now New York–based, has become known for her large-scale portraits of individuals in her community. For her paintings, she photographs her subjects where she meets them before painting them in her studio.
“Everything is so self-centered these days. But I really wanted to get to know all the people I was walking by every day, so I would just walk up and say hello. It’s as simple as introducing yourself, and you build a whole network of family. Community builds by listening to one another,” Casteel told ARTnews of her practice in a 2020 interview.
“Nothing happens without the work. I am in motion when I am making paintings, and the world’s in motion with me. If I am going to commit to painting Black and Brown bodies—and I will continue to do that—it is going to be an act that contributes to the conversations that are happening right now,” she continued.
Casteel was previously represented by Massimo De Carlo gallery, whose roster she joined in 2021.
Her work is included in the traveling exhibition “The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure,” which opens at the North Carolina Museum of Art next month after appearing at London’s National Portrait Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
