A new canon of queer painters: Salman Toor

By Sarah Kennelly (Arts & Lit Editor)

For centuries, queer people have used art to reveal and express their identities in ways that defied heteronormative ideals. This was explored through hidden queer codes such as peacock feathers and green carnations that indicated the sexuality of an artist or their subject. However, as the LGBTQ+ liberation movement grew, so did the representation of their experiences in art. More artists began to throw hidden symbols to the wind, in favour of raw and open portrayals of Queer life. This became especially prevalent in the Western canon of art after the Stonewall riots where Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe used their art to highlight the tragedy of the HIV AIDS epidemic. 

This opened the door for other artists to unapologetically express their queer identity through artistic mediums. Since then, there have been troves of talented LGBTQ+ artists who have created paintings, installations, and performances that have changed the art landscape and helped to challenge prejudiced ideas of queer life. 

Salman Toor, a Pakistani-born American painter, is one of the many brilliant queer artists who are becoming household names in contemporary art. Born in Lahore in the 1980s, his genius talent was recognised from an early age by his teachers, family, and friends. He was engrossed in the world of art, spending most of his school days in the art room getting lost in creation. Although Toor’s natural talent was obvious, he worked incredibly hard to receive a scholarship at Ohio Wesleyan University where he obtained a Bachelor degree in Arts. Finally, in 2009, he completed his MFA in Fine Art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he still resides today. 

It wasn’t until a decade later that he would receive the recognition that he deserved, exploding onto the New York art scene with his first large-scale exhibition that gained him worldwide fame. Now, sitting at a cool 139,000 Instagram followers, Toor is making a name for himself in an industry that seemed entirely out of reach just a few years prior. 

If you have ever seen one of Toor’s paintings, it’s not hard to understand how or why he has risen to fame in such a short period of time. Often coated in Emerald green, they easily catch the attention of an audience, emanating a dream-like quality that is impossible to take your eyes off of. As you look closer, the figures in his art flicker with a movement that seems so real it is like they are laughing, dancing, jumping from the canvas right before you. He has mastered the skill of bringing these characters to life, sketching emotions that appear so striking, you almost forget they are fictional. No matter how much time you spend studying it, a new object seems to appear from the dark and reveal itself. This undoubtedly stems from his fascination with miniature art, focusing on the finer details of each and every aspect of a scene. Toor’s paintings are never simplistic or minimalistic, containing multiple images that never seem to clash with one another, perfectly blending into the scene. They are beautiful, passionate, and masterful, asserting their rightful place in the top echelons of New York artistry. 

However, it is not just the aesthetics of Toor’s paintings that have earned him the title of one of the most influential artists of his generation. Their subject matter goes deeper than appearances, exploring his experience as a queer brown man living in both the United States and Pakistan. Growing up as an effeminate boy in Lahore, he was relentlessly bullied and feared the discovery of his sexuality in a country where homosexuality was denounced at both a societal and political level. When he moved to Ohio as a teenager, the threat of homophobic violence remained but racism became an added layer to his experience of oppression.

Despite this, his experience as a queer man was not entirely characterised by violence, trauma, and oppression. Once he moved to New York to complete an MFA, he discovered a queer community that allowed him to feel both safe and joyful. Toor began to experience the joy of drag shows, queer kinship, dinner dates, and vibrant parties. This allowed him to flourish as a young man, opening him up to an idea of LGBTQ+ life that seemed impossible in another life. For example, in “The Queen”, a queer person is dressed in beautiful garments and jewellery, embracing other queer people in what seems like a joyous scene. Although the painting is set in Pakistan, Toor shows that there is hope and space for queer people to enjoy life and their sexuality openly. 

Toor’s paintings act as a medium for him to explore the multifaceted nature of queer life that involves sadness, sex, and friendship. They act as a way to defy binary representations of queer men as either hypersexualised or brutalised. The subjects of his art affords humanity to these identities, showing them in scenes that are usually reserved for heterosexual “normalcy”. From a playful pillow fight, to a movie night, to a man aimlessly scrolling through his phone, queer people are shown in moments where their sexuality is not the focus of their portrayal. They are enjoying everyday mundane things that are rarely associated with queer life which is often depicted as chaos in one way or another. 

They also work against racist representations of Brown men that either vilify them or fetishize them. Firstly, Brown men are at the centre of his 18th-century inspired paintings rather than the previous oversaturation of white characters. He refuses to follow Eurocentric standards, highlighting the beauty of long noses and body hair in many of his paintings. This becomes a form of empowerment for Toor, reclaiming space in the surrealist genre of art that has historically turned its back on people of colour. It also allows him to speak on the oppression of South Asian people in the United States. This is particularly evident in the painting “Immigration Men” that depicts the cruelty of deportation. Through his art, Toor is bringing important social issues to the forefront of the conversation in the contemporary art scene, a historically prejudiced and ignorant industry. 

Salman Toor’s paintings promise to please any audience with their fine artistry. But it is their ability to educate audiences about the queer experience that has been the most impactful. His success is indicative of how the art world is changing, rather than exploiting queerness, it is beginning to celebrate it and all the multilayered aspects that go along with it. Toor’s art shows us how dire the need is to platform representations of the LGBTQ+ community and communities of colour in order to debunk myths that still pervade mainstream media today. It also gives us a window into a life that has been so erroneously misrepresented for centuries.