Jordan

Jordan Casteel: The first thing that happens when I see this painting that Jennifer did of me in my studio at Yale, my second year, I was getting ready for graduation. I was preparing my thesis show.

Narrator: Jordan Casteel is a painter.

Jordan Casteel: She was somebody who came in . . . all the memories come flooding back, first and foremost of where I was in my life and what was happening, and then where she entered my life and how I felt safe with her. And you feel that, I think in this painting, based off the colors that she chose, there are these ambers and rose hues kind of enveloping me as I sprawl across the couch. And I remember feeling like I was merging with the environment over the period of time that she was painting me. She was doing it all from life, and I just sat there for two days. So one of the things it’s absolutely true is that I mimic the surroundings, in the way that I felt that I was becoming quite enmeshed with that space at that time.

It feels very explicit to me that she is present within the work, that her marks hold a certain care. They happen over a long period of time and watching her paint I felt that: that there was a pause before every mark. There was real intentionality and that intentionality is part of what I think makes it vulnerable is that she’s taking the time to see her environment, to relate to her environment and then to depict it as such.