Salman Toor’s first European solo show opens at the Courtauld Gallery

Salman Toor’s first European solo exhibition is at London’s Courtauld Gallery.

Called Someone Like You, it surveys seven years of work by the Lahore-born, New York-based artist.

The show includes 19 paintings, ranging from scenes of friendship and crowded city life to loneliness and tension.

Many works depict queer brown men and draw on Toor’s own experiences and identity, particularly his queer sexuality.

One painting addresses the tense experience of US border control for a Pakistani person after the September 11 attacks.

The exhibition presents both joyful connection and difficult, vulnerable moments, including the tensions of growing up queer and effeminate in Pakistan.

Toor’s art has drawn wide attention since a 2020 solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and he also featured in the main exhibition of the 2024 Venice Biennale.

The Courtauld show highlights how his style continues to change, with later paintings using looser brushwork and more abstract forms.