It is not just that he recently sold a painting setting the record for a Pakistani artist or secured a solo show at the prestigious Whitney Museum; there is something else in Salman Toor that makes him special, sought after and superb. Is it the nature of his subject, identity of his characters, the structure of his views; or the choice of his formal methods, i.e. palette, brush mark, compositions? Or is it his personality, his situation vis-à-vis his place of residence and his sexual preference?

Looking at his canvases (How Will I Know, November 13, 2020 to April 4, 2021, at Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC), one recalls French diarist Jules Renard’s quote: “When I am in front of a picture, it speaks better than I do”. Because “most of us”, as Julian Barnes writing on Degas observes “when in front of a painting, do not give the picture time enough to speak. We talk at it, about it, to it; we want to forcibly understand it, get its measure, colonise it, ‘friend’ it”. On the other hand, Salman Toor’s paintings practice the power to ‘colonise’, captivate and capture us – both informed and general audience. His work excavates different things in different viewers.

To begin with, the work narrates the life and times of the painter, since pictures consist mainly of men and boys (like Two Men with Vans Tie and Bottle, Bar Boy, Car Boys etc) engaged in small but not insignificant acts. One cannot get away from the odd and old habit of matching visuals with autobiography, but Toor’s work offers something beyond the painter’s personality.

In their strange chemistry, Toor’s paintings combine a moment of pleasure and an air of melancholy. The two connect because we can never be totally satiated or utterly depressed. Mind is not a faithful friend: it subverts. In his paintings, too, one can pick the feeling of a free man who may not be independent. Like others spotted in diverse situations, the man may be bound by customs, regulations, and conventions.

At home, on a bed, in a public place, at someone’s house, on a street – but always in the realm of imagination and anticipation. Toor paints people at a gay bar, in groups conversing with one another, while an individual is seen leaning on a bench, tired, sleeping, perhaps passed out. You can’t tell, but the loneliness of this character can be connected to another person, standing and busy with his cell phone. There are figures in other paintings, engaged with their devices; a naked man making a selfie (Bedroom Boy), two boys huddled and photographing themselves (Stoop), one among Four Friends holding his mobile phone to capture the moment. And it is not just mobile phones; computers, too, participate in conveying the state of mind/body of protagonists in Toor’s art. For instance, the sleeping boy, lying on the bed exposed, may have just taken his eyes off the laptop, lights from which illuminate his head and the upper torso.

The inclusion of these gadgets, so much a part of our day-to-day existence, is meant not merely to record the present, but also to remind us of an absence. A man, talking to his ‘phone’ in a busy bar, aiming for a self-picture, or interacting with a computer in an intimate environment – represents us, people who have substituted the real with the digital, replaced the physical with the virtual and are content since there is no other choice. In Salman Toor’s work, this leads to an aftertaste of the ‘outsider’. Through one’s electronic devices, one communicates with and becomes close to someone residing thousands of miles away rather than those sharing one’s physical space. Being a geographical outsider is as natural (but problematic) as being a societal outsider, e.g. a young man dismissed by the rest of the family gathered for Tea, where the older man is smoking and three women are either looking away or looking at him with an air of inquiry – almost inquisition.

In that sense, his work – despite the difference in theme – could be compared to Garcia Marquez’s fiction, rooted in his home towns (Barranquilla and Bogota) yet associated with millions across the planet.

The inquiry and search which can be encountered and dealt with in the intimacy of a house is insurmountable in public. Car Boys on a suburban road are hassled by security guards. In another painting, Smoke, three young men are smoking in an alley, presumably in NYC, while a metropolitan cop stands in the background next to a passer-by.

These images, whether in a crowded bar or an empty street in the US; at home or on a deserted road in Pakistan, also suggest and celebrate the position of an outsider: a person removed from his homeland, prescribed behaviour, expected sexuality or presumed social interaction. Such a person stands alone and stands tall, because he responds to his true calling.

Along with the queer calling, the other identity for the painter is his art. Interestingly, compared to a number of (Pakistani) artists living in the West, who have jumped on a streetcar named diaspora, for Salman, the move from Pakistan to the USA is probably a minor detail, compared to other problematic passages. He combines his imagery in such a way that one is unable to detect whether the Four Friends are having a party in Gulberg, Lahore, or in Manhattan. In a sense, the work, even though some of it rooted to the soil, a New York house (Stoop) or a room in Lahore (Man with Face Creams and Phone Plug), transcends physical location; it represents the displacement of a different kind: out of one’s self-imposed role, gender norms and the way to represent one’s cultural identity.

Perhaps, the best thing about Salman Toor’s work is not its track to tradition or territory. It is situated at specific locations, yet does not project the address. The two boys stopped late at night by security guards could be from a distant country in South America; the young person standing away from his family having tea could be anywhere from Egypt to Ecuador. In that sense, his work – despite the difference in theme – could be compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s fiction, rooted in his home towns (Barranquilla and Bogota) yet associated with millions across the planet.

Like Marquez, it is the act of transcribing reality in a phantasmagorical vocabulary that elevates the art of Salman Toor beyond geography. His method of painting, which is casual yet lucid; and his composition, which is structured, but still lifelike; turn his work into complex visuals. His “delicate, caressing brush strokes” (described by Roberta Smith in The New York Times review), loosely-formed figures and intimate backgrounds have a sensuousness quality. The identity of protagonists and their surroundings convey the content. For example, in Smokers, three lads are smoking against a pale brick background, whereas a policeman and a pedestrian are on the other side of the kerb. The physical distance between these, rebellious youngsters and the established order and institution of society is suggested in a sublime manner, by positioning two types on disconnected turfs.

Given Toor’s genius in ‘picture making’, his act of painting adds to the ‘pleasure’ of painting/seeing. The paint seems fresh, flowing, almost wet – yet eternal. One realises that scenes rendered in each of his 15 canvases were instantaneous episodes in the lengthy chains of innumerable acts, events and encounters, which we will never know, nor search. This bringing to mind American philosopher William James’s view that art “was the only reality and that life was simply an experimental thing”.

The writer is an art critic based in Lahore