New Video: Jordan Casteel Challenges Preconceptions Through Portraiture
June 16, 2017
By Nick Ravich

In a new film from our digital series New York Close Up, artist Jordan Casteel shares how she found subject matter that mattered to her.

Frustrated by her twin brother’s experiences with racial profiling, Casteel began painting portraits of her those in her community—friends, family members, boyfriends, and eventually strangers on the streets of her adopted neighborhood of Harlem.

“I needed to find a way to…create a sense of visibility around my family and my brothers that was feeling absent at that time.”


Jordan Casteel featured by Art21