The Beating 2019

Salman Toor's painting, The Beating, is rendered with brushstrokes that feel both urgent and tender. The pervasive green hue, like a night vision filter, sets an eerie, uneasy stage. I wonder what it was like for Toor to build up this scene, layer by layer. Did he start with the figures, or did the oppressive green come first, dictating the mood? The paint isn't troweled on, but it's not thin either – just right, like he knew exactly when to stop. Look at the way he’s rendered the figure with the baseball bat; it’s a gesture of violence, but also a stroke of undeniable energy. It puts me in mind of Goya's dark paintings, or maybe even some of Philip Guston’s later, more narrative works. Artists are always talking to each other across time, picking up the thread of art history and weaving it into something new. Toor takes on this history with a fresh, personal twist, reminding us that painting can be a way to grapple with the tough stuff, to make sense of a world that often feels senseless.