The Beating 2019

Salman Toor made "The Beating" with paint. It's hard to know exactly when, but it feels like now. The painting has an ominous, dreamlike quality, with its eerie green palette. The paint is applied in thin, washy layers, creating a sense of depth and atmosphere, like a memory. The way the figures are rendered is particularly striking – their faces and bodies seem to dissolve into the shadows, emphasizing the violence of the scene. Look at the figure wielding the baseball bat. The motion of his arm, the angle of his body, all rendered with such economy of brushstrokes. It reminds me of Goya, of course, but also maybe Philip Guston. Like Toor, both of those artists were able to take the horrors of the world and turn them into something both repulsive and compelling. It's a testament to the power of painting to confront difficult subjects and still find beauty in the process.