Ali Banisadr’s first one-person exhibition features paintings in oil on canvas created during the past year. With lush applications of brilliant color, rendered in a semi-abstract style, they combine stylistic idioms from the history of western art with references to Persian miniature painting. Underlying the seductive beauty of Banisadr’s richly interwoven imagery is the apocalyptic nature of his subject matter. In these works, memory and history collide, inspired by his childhood recollections of the Iran-Iraq War.

Ali Banisadr was born in Tehran in 1976. At the age of twelve his family left Iran, living briefly in Turkey before emigrating to California. As a teenager living in San Francisco, Banisadr was part of a well-known group of graffiti artists. After briefly studying psychology, he left the Bay Area to attend art school in New York, receiving a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2005 and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2007. He continues to live and work in New York.

Paintings by Ali Banisadr will be featured in the exhibition Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at the Saatchi Gallery in London, opening in February of 2009.