WHO IS Peter Pan?

With Salman Toor it’s like looking into a secret world using night vision goggles. Everything tinted green and sort of glowing eerily from within. Lit by candle light. Languid, limp figures mope around Pleasure Island, fugitive boys living just outside the grown up world. But this freedom has its costs. Danger lurks. Betrayal’s abound. Predatory glances. The sweet, swooning lost boys seem unworried by whatever fate might await them.

The feel of the work evokes Picasso’s blue period conversing with Van Gogh’s manic brush work. The details that arouse his interest, or linger in his memory, are recorded with great relish and expressive invention. Inconsequential elements are merely outlined or hinted at, without compulsion to exaggerate or decorate, leaving large swaths of unapologetic open ground. You can feel how much he loves the paint. Applying it in thick, regular finger-like daubs. Despite his commitment to green he has such a delicate, gentle eye for color. The pink shoe. The red clown’s nose that so often appears, like that of some exotic monkey.

Most of all I love the way he’s so in touch with this world of his, it’s cast of characters, it’s history. Sort of ecstatic and lethargic and melting together.