Katie Alafdal

Katie Alafdal is a writer and visual artist based in the glitter and haze of Los Angeles. Their work has previously been published in "The Maine Review," "Autostraddle," "The Belladonna" and "Hooligan Magazine". They spend most of their days staring aimlessly into churning bodies of water, rereading Sophocles, and talking to flowers. You can find them on Insta @leromanovs.

ART

The Miraculous Vivacity of Salman Toor

By KATIE ALAFDAL

To confront a Toor then is to reckon with the nature of art history itself. And simultaneously, it is to imagine a vision of optimistic queer futurity that begins with recognition as a radical form of community building. From paintings of beleaguered South Asian folks worn out in airport security lines, to reconfigurations of queer non-binary folks caught in the heady desire of an embrace, Toor carves out a space for new and vivacious subjectivities that have long been hushed or glossed over.