Jordan Casteel: Visible Man Series
Cornelius, 2013.
About:
Artists are also making work that explores the range of black experience, addressing the stereotypes that often lead to violence against black Americans. “When Trayvon Martin passed, I had a phone conversation with my twin brother that ignited my urgency to create a body of work that would address the complexities, humanity, and vulnerability of the black men I had known and loved my entire life,” says painter Jordan Casteel. “From that moment on, I dedicated my time to working towards building the Visible Man portrait series.” In the 12 portraits that she created, Casteel asked black men to show her a place where they felt safe and she painted them in the nude. (I-D, September 2015)
Jonathan, 2014.
Devan, 2014.
The nudes happened initially in an effort to counteract what clothing can do in detracting from understanding the essence of somebody. There can be insignias or stereotypes that people want to project based off of what someone is wearing, which I feel blocks people from understanding who these people are. I was watching a lifetime of men being misunderstood and seen as villains and hyper-sexualized.(From Art Versed, March 2016)
Jireh, 2013.
Ato, 2014.
Jordan Casteel (b. 1989 in Denver, CO) received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA for Studio Art (2011) and her M.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art in New Haven, CT (2014). She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY, (2015) Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Process Space, Governors Island, NY, (2015) and is currently a resident at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2015-16). Additionally, her work was selected for inclusion in New American Paintings Northeast Issue #116 – 2015. She has had two solo exhibitions in New York with Sargent’s Daughters in August 2014 and October 2015 and was featured in Artforum, Flash Art, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, The New York Observer and Interview Magazine. Casteel will be an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University-Newark beginning in the Fall of 2016.(text website artist)
Courtesy: Sargent’s Daughters Gallery, NY.