This month we celebrate Black History Month, an annual observance originating in the United States 45 years ago. We celebrate Black History Month in February because it coincides with the birth of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and of Frederick Douglass on February 20.
In Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom it is observed in October.
Notably, Morgan Freeman recently stated, “In 2021, conversations about Black history and racism should not (and will not) be relegated to February alone.”
The first artist we celebrate this month is a Contemporary American Artist, Jordan Casteel. Casteel was invited by Anna Wintour to create her own cover for the 2020 September Issue of Vogue. Casteel, in all of her art, chooses to feature real people “being” who they are.
For Vogue’s September Issue - Hope, Casteel chose Aurora James. James founded Brother Vellies in 2013. Brother Vellies makes shoes and handbags. Its mission is to preserve the African shoemaking and bag craft while creating new jobs for artisans. James spends a quarter of every year in Africa to work with the artisans to develop the designs for the upcoming season.
Jordan Casteel, born in 1989 in Denver, Colorado, honed her artistic approach while getting her M.F.A. at Yale from 2012 to 2014. Casteel learned about Yale by Googling ‘best MFA programs’.
“I took art classes in college, but my major wasn’t studio art until my junior year, when I studied abroad in Italy and took my first painting class. Paint portraits or whatever you want. And I did. I painted portraits of a lot of the grounds-keeping staff. Those were the relationships that I found to be the most intimate and important to me.”
Casteel’s practice is built around: the psychological landscape of her sitters; the social landscape of her communities; the landscape, as she puts it, of her life. Masterfully skewing perspectives and intuiting luscious, fierce colors, Casteel paints her neighbors in Harlem, her fellow subway riders and her students at Rutgers University–Newark.
Above in 2017, Casteel is speaking at The Denver Art Museum in front of her painting of real people in their landscape, “Yvonne and James”.
‘When I see these paintings, I see myself,’ Casteel says in reference to how she puts herself into her celebrated portraits of everyday people, below in 2018, ‘17 and ‘16.
Her Turn, 2018. Casteel zoomed in on an everyday gesture observed on New York City’s subway train to paint this work. While the subject’s identity is concealed, you feel her presence. Casteel captures the anonymity yet individuality of this woman, and many who live in the city.
The Baayfalls, 2017. They are artists, too, selling their jewelry and hats on the street. The t-shirt the woman wears reads - I am not interested in competing with anyone. This portrait from 2017 is now a 1,400 square foot mural along Manhattan’s skyline.
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Charles, 2016. Charles, along with 39 other portraits made over seven years, was part of Casteel’s first solo museum exhibition, Within Reach, at the New Museum in New York City. The exhibition is still up, but as the museum is currently closed because of COVID can be viewed online.
All of the people featured in Casteel’s paintings look straight out at the viewer as if they are about to ask the viewer a question or engage in conversation. Casteel explores notions of race, class and belonging through both her humane and documentative approach.
Casteel has risen to a notable name representing and celebrating the contemporary black experience in everyday life. Casteel offers a fresh perspective of her community’s culture that’s both captivating, freeing and relatable.
Watch how the joy of Casteel’s work comes to life for herself, when showing the portraits to the people she paints.
