Thaddaeus Ropac has taken on the illustration of Jordan Casteel in collaboration with the New York gallery Casey Kaplan, which has represented the American painter since 2016.
Ropac’s first exhibition of recent work by Casteel will happen in its London house in April, adopted by her first solo present in Europe at its Paris gallery subsequent yr. Casteel was beforehand represented by Massimo de Carlo gallery, which she joined in 2021 and the place she had an acclaimed solo present, There’s a Season, in its London premises throughout Frieze week in October of that yr.
Born in Denver, now dwelling and dealing in New York, Casteel takes inspiration from figurative painters comparable to Alice Neel and the folks and communities by which she lives for her vibrant, large-scale works. As a substitute of asking her topics to pose inside a standard studio, Casteel usually pictures them the place she encounters them, “assembly folks the place they’re versus asking them to enter my house”.
Jordan Casteel, Naima’s Present (Deon, Kym and Noah, 2023)
Picture: David Schulze. © Jordan Casteel. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery
Portray, Casteel says, “turns into a software to get folks to see the multiplicity of ourselves: our disappointment, our pleasure, our love, our loss, our moments of stillness, the moments that don’t get heard”. Her topics are key, however so is the method in drawing them out: “As sections of the portray start to construct, the load begins to inform the story, pulling and constructing, with fields of color on the canvas which are typically virtually topographical maps on someone’s face or of their palms.”
Casteel’s work is included within the touring exhibition The Time is At all times Now: Artists Reframe the Black Determine, which opens subsequent month on the North Carolina Museum of Artwork, having travelled from London’s Nationwide Portrait Gallery (2024) and the Philadelphia Museum of Artwork (2024–25).
“Jordan Casteel stands out in her technology of painters for her extraordinary acuteness of commentary, and empathetic therapy of her topics,” says Thaddaeus Ropac, whose gallery now represents over 70 artists. “A magnetic sense of proximity and directness defines her painterly strategy, as she intimately captures their humanity and private spheres. She questions tips on how to be seen and tips on how to symbolize, reflecting on interconnectedness, belonging and id.”
