The Art of Portraiture: An Urban School Art Teacher’s Use of Art as Creative Resistance 43 Cleveland Hayes Contents Critical Pedagogy and the Arts: The Introduction .............................................. 962 Review of the Literature: Critical Arts Pedagogy .............................................. 962 Meet the Critical Art Teacher: Dr. Gee ......................................................... 964 Theoretical Framework .......................................................................... 966 Positionality of the Author ...................................................................... 967 Critical Race Portraiture: Methodological Perspectives ........................................ 968 Dr. Gee: Critical Race Art Educator ............................................................ 969 Critical Race Art Education: Cruising the Los Angeles Landscape ........................... 972 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 974 References ....................................................................................... 975 Abstract The ideas and origins of critical pedagogy have spawned unique perspectives and contributions that other scholars, in different disciplines, have now incorporated in developing modernized approaches to critical pedagogy. Because resistance is a form of negotiation directed toward school-based hegemony, this chapter will illustrate one critical art teacher’ s ability to use art as a form of negotiation to challenge the limitations faced by urban students. Critical art educators, like Dr. Gee, who will be discussed in this chapter, need to show a commitment to developing a critical awareness, in order to expose and challenge socioeconomic constructs and discuss oppressive structures of power that affects students of color. Keywords Funds of knowledge · Critical race theory · Art education · Latino male teachers · Urban education C. Hayes (*) Indiana University School of Education, Indianapolis, IN, USA e-mail: clehayes@iu.edu © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 R. Papa (ed.), Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14625-2_136 961