Fort Greene 2018

Salman Toor’s Fort Greene is made in oil on board, though the exact date eludes me, it has the quality of being of the moment. The muted palette gives the scene a dreamlike quality, like a memory half-recalled. You can see the paint handling up close: see how he loads the brush and pulls it across the surface, almost dry in places, creating a sort of textural hum. Look at the figure in the green vest, see how the light pools around his head. There's an almost reverential quality to this, as if he's stepped out of a Renaissance painting and into a Brooklyn street. Toor’s work reminds me of other artists who blur the lines between observation and imagination: someone like Nicole Eisenman, maybe. But ultimately, he’s doing his own thing, creating his own world, and inviting us to step inside.