Untitled

In my art history classes at college in Ohio I learned about the grimy peasants in David Teniers and Bruegel, the dark-skinned servants in Dutch genre paintings, the steely refinement of an Anthony van Dyck subject, the sordid nightlife of Impressionist Paris. Within these were ways of looking at the relationship between the rich and the poor, ways of portraying foreignness, race, power, dignity, exoticism, difference. By continuing to paint, I feel I’m constantly redefining my relationship to this material that I never get tired of.
—Salman Toor