SALMAN TOOR

Salman Toor was born in 1983 in Lahore, Pakistan. He received his BFA from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2006 and his MFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2009. Toor is a figurative painter. Salman Toor’s paintings are an eclectic mix of the exhausted categories of old and new. In them inspiration from Old Master painting melds seamlessly with imagery from South Asian mass-media and popular culture, including graphic paintings from local Lahore cinema billboards and contemporary advertising from Bollywood and fashion magazines. Toor transforms signs of poverty and commercial products into heroic symbols and absurdly idealized motifs through the metaphysical qualities of oil paint.