‘Painting was something I learned when I moved from Pakistan to the United States, but drawing I always considered as second nature.’ – Salman Toor (2022)

For Salman Toor (b.1983), drawing is an integral part of his artistic life. To coincide with the exhibition Salman Toor: Someone Like You, this focused display of a substantial group of works on paper, made with ink, charcoal, and gouache, showcases the artist’s mastery of drawing and the way in which it informs his practice as a painter.

Having started drawing as a child, figure-drawing classes were a crucial part of Toor’s undergraduate training. Informed by his close study of art history, particularly of baroque works, Toor’s arresting drawings are characterised by his striking treatment of light as well as his rendering of real and implied movement to create pictures charged with a sense of dynamism and inner life.

Toor often works on variations of recurring motifs. Among the works included in this presentation are examples of his distinctive drawings of individuals and groups of figures at border control checks, as well as still-lifes such as Fag Puddle in Vitrine (2021), which capture the fascination and greed connected to histories of accumulation and plundering. At times, the artist has reworked historical paintings that especially affected him into new narratives and compositions, such as in his drawing Three Mascots (2023), after Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s grisaille The Three Soldiers (1568).

Although they are derived from his imagination, Toor’s drawings are often based on memories, especially the faces of friends and acquaintances. Toor has said that drawing someone is a way of connecting, ‘like praying for someone, or thinking about them, creating a fantasy of them’.

Salman Toor: Someone Like You can also be seen in the Denise Coates Exhibitions Gallery on the third floor from 2 Oct 2026 – 10 Jan 2027.

Salman Toor (b.1983), Fag Puddle in Vitrine, 2021, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust).