“Through the act of making these paintings, real relationships are born,” says Jordan Casteel. Casteel painted this portrait after befriending clothing designer, Fallou Wadje, on her daily commute to the Studio Museum in Harlem. Meeting the viewer’s gaze, Wadje exudes a level of familiarity common among Casteel’s paintings, which feature the artist’s evolving relationships with her subjects as a means of celebrating her community. See “Fallou” as part of Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of S

In a studio visit with university students, artist Jordan Casteel explains the thinking behind her large-scale portraits, as seen in a film from our "New York Close Up" digital series. — http://a21.tv/CasteelPaints "There have been some criticisms of, 'I only paint men,'" recalls the artist in this clip from the film. "Every time people say women are absent, I'm like, 'I don’t know if I feel absence, because I’m very much a part of this work and it's translated through my experience.'" | Art21