AfterParty 2019

Salman Toor’s ‘AfterParty’ is made with oil on panel, and the green ground looks like it was scrubbed into the surface. It feels like a memory being pulled into the present, something half-forgotten. I'm thinking about the artist and what it might have been like for him to make this painting. The composition is tight, and the bodies are tangled together. The brushstrokes are loose, even slapdash, and the whole scene glows with a strange, phosphorescent light. See how the figures emerge from the green background, as if they were always there, waiting to be revealed? That kneeling guy on the chair - is he falling or rising? Toor lets his figures just be, with all their vulnerabilities on display. There's something very tender and melancholic about the scene. It makes me think of other artists, like Alice Neel, who also painted people with so much empathy. Each artist adds to this evolving conversation about what it means to be human, and what it means to be seen.