Ali Banisadr b. 1976

For over two decades, Banisadr has developed a distinctive style of abstract painting that alchemizes an encyclopedic span of art historical, cultural, and literary references into a single, remarkable vision. Characterized by layers of confident gestural marks finished with emergent details—symbols, figures, beasts—that recur across his work as motifs, Banisadr’s paintings are worlds unto themselves. Allegorical and mythological, they powerfully transmit an experience of simultaneous action and reaction, alluding to narrative while grappling with the ambiguous nature of memory, imagination, and dream. More recently, Banisadr has extended the vocabulary of his paintings into three dimensions with bronze sculpture, and realized pastel and charcoal works on paper that reflect his ritual daily practice of spontaneous drawing.

Informed by a transhistorical, cross-cultural sensibility, Banisadr draws parallels between primordial biomorphic forms, early cave painting, ancient histories, Old Master drawings, Persian miniatures, the multifigured history paintings of the Renaissance, Surrealism’s alternate realities, and the emotive, highly physical process of action painting. As if from a bird’s-eye view, Banisadr’s perspective exposes the many arcs of human civilization and image-making. Joe Lin-Hill, Deputy Director of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, has described this as “an abstract painterly amalgam that expresses a particular view on history and the multitudinous stories of which it is composed.” Banisadr’s paintings are equally concerned with the contemporary era and humanity’s possible futures, and increasingly allude to the subtle encroachment of technology in visual culture and perception.

The work’s sense of motion and orchestral energetics are attributable in part to the artist’s experiences as a young child during the Iran-Iraq war. Rendering the sounds of conflict into vivid color, Banisadr makes sense of these formative memories by emphasizing the theme of duality at the heart of the human condition. In 1988, when the artist was twelve, Banisadr left Iran with his family and settled in San Diego, California, later moving to San Francisco to study psychology.

Banisadr earned a BFA at the School of Visual Arts (2005) and an MFA at the New York Academy of Art (2007). His first major monograph was published by Rizzoli Electa in 2021, with an introduction by Negar Azimi and contributions by Robert Hobbs, Joe Lin-Hill, and John Yau.

MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS & COLLECTIONS

Ali Banisadr’s recent and forthcoming institutional solo exhibitions include the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (2026) and Ali Banisadr: The Alchemist, a 20-year survey exhibition organized by the Katonah Museum of Art, which will travel to Museum of Fine Art, St. Petersburg (2026), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2026), and Rose Art Museum (2027).

In 2021, a solo exhibition of the artist’s works was installed in dialogue with the permanent collection of the Museo Stefano Bardini in Florence, Italy; Banisadr was also invited to create a group of site-specific paintings for the exhibition, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and installed in the nearby Palazzo Vecchio.

Other solo exhibitions have been staged at the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece (2020); the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (2020); Gemäldegalerie, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria (2019); and Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, Netherlands (2019). His work has also been included in significant group exhibitions, including at the Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan and the Venice Biennale (2013-14) and Prague Biennale 6 (2013).

Banisadr’s work is included in significant public collections worldwide, including the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece; the British Museum, London; the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, Netherlands; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, among others.