This exhibition of Salman Toor’s paintings acts like snapshots in a story or a movie, each depicting a separate experience. Every piece draws you in and carries a true push and pull within the composition. The push and pull that drew me in was the idea of public versus private that emanates from within the work, the dream and reality, and just how much intimacy Toor decides to share with us. The feelings of intimacy and vulnerability come from witnessing the lives of the figures Toor presents, leaving us to wonder if we are allowed to bear witness to these moments, or if we’ve just “walked into” something meant to be entirely private.
Moments of quiet contemplation emerge through the work of Oh Father, depicting two men in conversation with an older gentleman. Toor let’s viewers walk by as if the conversation is suspended and you are simply witnessing the interaction in silence, with no context on who the characters may be, or what their feelings or thoughts are. By providing you pieces of the story, which he gives you to interpret and interact with, you are left to place your own emotions into the interaction. You do not know what they are discussing, or how the interaction may be going, Toor simply makes us passerbys in the crowd. By allowing viewers this distance from the experience presented within the painting, Toor is essentially pulling them in as well; having them empathize with the characters and share feelings of vulnerability, anxiety, or even tenderness in that moment.
Toor’s work in this exhibition reminded me of the premise of Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock, with multiple ways of looking and questioning what is private versus what should be viewed. Toor directs viewers to see in by means of a window, the slide of a curtain, or a slightly cracked open door that you begin to feel as if you entered these figures’ lives. Whether you are welcome though is another question. In the painting titled Waiting, you see this figure, fully at home, alone within their own intimate space at night time, and someone is seen on the side, peering in the door, unnoticed. Toor flourishes in these small details. It gives away no context to the scene, but leaves you wondering- is this person noticed, are they welcome to witness this seemingly very personal, quiet moment?
Toor is also a master at creating emotion with color, and an expanding space with paint. The transparency in the layers he uses on the smooth panels build up to create a surreal atmosphere. As I walked amongst all of the work within the exhibition, I began to feel as if some of the colors Toor has chosen for each composition reflect the mood of the situation. The Hitchcockian Vertigo green creates a sense of wonder, a dreamy levitation from reality, or the blue within the piece Walking Back that resembles a cool, serene night out with two figures getting ice cream and spending time with each other. Another tender moment, where we do not hear their conversations and only witness the experience.
These tender moments carry with them multiple experiences. Vulnerability in today’s times is hard to display, especially any opportunity to do so privately; however, Toor uses these works to show a journey, to show one’s experience of one’s self and those closest to them. While many pieces had me questioning reality, with the fantastical use of vibrant colors and quick, energetic paint strokes to fill out figures in crowds or piles, I realize Toor is painting real experience and is allowing us as viewers to join in, like the figures in the works. He allows us to decide how to view the figures within the spaces, and also guide us on how their existence seems. A statement from the press release struck me, and coincided with this. “When green applies its filter to the world, it can be a lens onto great beauty or horrific violence; in Toor’s work, it always illuminates specific sensations of both. It all depends on how you hold it up to the light.”
This came to mind with the man slowly entering the door in the piece Waiting; someone may view it as nice, serene, a friend waiting for a friend. While another may find the scene uncomfortable or intrusive into someone’s personal space.
By depicting these experiences between figures, within relationships, Toor uses painting to expand space, time, experience, and circumstance. In many of Toor’s compositions, his figures dwell in spaces of waiting, sitting in anticipation and apprehension for what may happen next, what may be looming just past the margins, such as in the piece Ward. While in others, many of his figures flourish safely and inhabit the comfort and intimacy of their own private lives. In experiencing these works, we are experiencing Toor’s depictions of life and relationships as an immigrant between cultures, suspended between several different ways of looking, both publicly and privately. In presenting these pieces, viewers are left to decide how the atmosphere of the work will be, and Toor simply guides the way.
All images provided by Luhring Augustine Gallery
Salman Toor, Wish Maker, At Luhring Augustine Gallery
May 2 – June 21 2025, 531 W 24th Street, New York NY
@luhringaugustine
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About the Writer: Taylor Bielecki lives in Gowanus, where her studio is, and works at Pratt Institute, where she earned her MFA, she also studied at Penn State, where she earned a BA in English and a BFA in Fine Arts. She finished as a finalist in the Kennedy Center’s VSA National Emerging Young Artist program for 2017; where she earned an award of Excellence. She has shown prints internationally in a print exchange in Australia and exhibitions in Dubai, India and the Glasgow School of Art. She has also shown paintings internationally in Gallery 24N, PhilaMOCA’s juried exhibitions in Philadelphia, Pa., Perry Lawson Fine Art in Nyack, NY, BWAC in Red Hook, and Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn. Taylor has joined Art Spiel as a contributing writer.