Audience 2016

Salman Toor's painting, "Audience", captures a crowd bathed in an eerie yet inviting light, using oil paint. Looking at this painting, I think about the artist layering pale greens, yellows, and browns to create these figures, almost like ghosts. The brushstrokes seem quick, decisive—like he’s trying to capture a fleeting moment. I wonder if Toor felt like an outsider observing this group, or if he was part of the scene? I see echoes of other figurative painters here, maybe a touch of early Picasso or even some Balthus in the way he renders the figures. The way that the figures are 'looking' out to us, the real audience, makes me think about how we are all in this together. It’s as though the artist is saying, "Here we are, a messy bunch of humans trying to make sense of it all."