Salman Toor: Someone Like You brings together 19 paintings, all previously unseen in Britain, that explore the desire for emotional and cultural belonging. Drawing on personal memories and experiences, Toor creates fictional scenes in which friendship and love coexist with solitude and alienation. His paintings consider how queer and immigrant lives move between cultures, attending to both the possibilities of community and the pressures of being visible.

The exhibition also traces Toor’s engagement with the history of painting, particularly Baroque and eighteenth-century traditions. Among the works presented, The Bar on East 13th (2019) revisits Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, held in the Courtauld’s collection. An accompanying display of drawings offers further insight into the role of drawing in his practice.