In 2007 Salman Toor was a 24-yo student at Pratt when he made this portrait of Zohran Mamdani, who was then 14. Amitav Ghosh posted the pic on instagram after Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary in NYC, which he celebrate with Mamdani’s parents, Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair.
From Artsy’s report, it sounds like the study was created in preparation of a larger family portrait. Toor is asked to do the corny thing of seeing the future in this portrait. Inshallah he wins, of course, but I do not go for this portraiture sorcery.
On the other hand, if you were to ask me if this looks like the portrait of a kid who told his mother to reject the offer to direct a Harry Potter movie and instead keep working on adapting a Jhumpa Lahiri novel about grieving over the loss of a far away family member, I would say “Absolutely, nailed it, 1000%.”