Iranian-American artist Ali Banisadr has opened a compelling solo exhibition at New York's Olney Gleason gallery, showcasing how his childhood experiences during the Iran-Iraq War continue to influence his artistic vision four decades later. The 49-year-old artist's latest show, titled "Noble/Savage," features a collection of new paintings and his first bronze sculptures, marking the inaugural exhibition for the gallery formerly known as Kasmin.
Banisadr's artistic journey began during one of the most turbulent periods in Iranian history. When the Iran-Iraq War broke out in 1980, he was only four years old living in Tehran. "As a child, I was trying to understand this chaos," Banisadr explained during a recent interview at his Brooklyn studio. "The most abstract thing to make sense of for me was living in Iran during the war." This early exposure to violence and confusion became the foundation of his distinctive visual language, which is further shaped by his synesthesia—a neurological condition that causes him to experience sounds as colors.
The artist describes his creative process as a way to impose order on disorder and make sense of overwhelming sensory experiences. His paintings feature layers of rough, energetic brushstrokes that collide with flashes of vibrant colors, creating compositions that hum with the same dissonance he experienced as a child. Despite their visually overwhelming nature, these canvases maintain an internal logic reminiscent of musical compositions, demonstrating Banisadr's unique ability to find structure within chaos.
In 1988, Banisadr's family relocated from Tehran to San Francisco, where he discovered graffiti art and became part of a community of socially conscious artists. He was particularly inspired by artists like Barry McGee, who used their medium to create sociopolitical commentary about issues affecting San Francisco, including the city's ongoing gentrification. However, over time, Banisadr felt drawn toward a more solitary studio practice that would allow him to work directly from his imagination.
This desire for artistic independence led Banisadr to New York in 2005, where he pursued formal training at both the School of Visual Arts and the New York Academy of Art. His studio today reflects his methodical approach to research and inspiration, featuring two long tables covered with open books. One table serves as his visual collage space where images accumulate as he works, while the other functions as his research station, covered with philosophical notes and essays. "I'm throwing a sort of net in the ocean," he explains, "trying to catch all these different things that come out."
The artist draws inspiration from a wide range of classical and modern masterpieces, with pages in his studio flipped open to works ranging from Francisco de Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son" (1819-23) to Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" (1937). These visual references directly influenced one of the largest paintings in his current show, "Leviathan" (2025), where figures of priests, angels, and kings are enveloped in a tempest of purple, white, and blue brushstrokes.
A significant shift occurred in Banisadr's work after he and his family purchased a place in the Hudson Valley. Last April, he temporarily relocated there and set up a small studio with views of the surrounding forests. This change of environment dramatically altered both his palette and artistic rhythm. "You just start to understand how nature works by being a witness to it," he noted. The forest's shifting light and layered greens influenced six canvases in the current exhibition, representing a departure from the intense, storm-like gestures that typically characterized his earlier work.
One notable example of this evolution is "Blood Meridian" (2025), a layered woodland scene rendered in loose, gestural brushstrokes that capture dappled light and atmospheric effects. "There's something about getting your hands dirty, being part of nature on a daily basis," Banisadr reflected. "It's changed the way I see." The painting's title references Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel about a runaway youth who becomes involved with scalp hunters in the 1850s, whose mood of violence, according to Banisadr, aligns with today's surreal and chaotic news cycle.
For his Olney Gleason exhibition, Banisadr borrowed a structural element from McCarthy's literary technique. In "Blood Meridian," each chapter begins with fragmentary phrases that build rhythm before the story unfolds. Similarly, Banisadr arranged his painting titles—"Paradise Lost," "Pandemonium of the Sun," "The Parting," and "Omen" (all 2025)—near the gallery's front desk so they read like a single poetic line, creating a literary framework for the visual experience.
The exhibition also marks Banisadr's debut in sculpture with his first bronze works. Two 4-foot sentinels titled "Anima" and "Animus" (both 2025) guard the entire show with their slender, branch-like forms rising from dark bases that appear charred. These titles reference psychologist Carl Jung's archetypes representing feminine and masculine forces that together create wholeness. Another sculptural work, "Gilgamesh" (2025), stands 1.5 feet tall and gives physical form to the ancient Mesopotamian tale of Gilgamesh and Enkidu—the civilized king and the wild man who begin as opposites but eventually mirror one another.
The exhibition's title, "Noble/Savage," encapsulates Banisadr's central artistic philosophy. "It's not really a singular idea—it's a battlefield of ideas," he explains. While Western art traditionally depicts nature as pure and civilization as corrupt, Banisadr seeks to unify this polarity, demonstrating how the two concepts are inextricably bound. His extensive knowledge of mythology informs this approach, as he believes that order and chaos must meet to create meaningful artistic expression.
Throughout his career, Banisadr has consistently explored the relationship between contrasting forces—city and forest, chaos and order, civilization and wildness. His current exhibition at Olney Gleason demonstrates that these opposing elements don't cancel each other out but rather create a dynamic tension that keeps both his artwork and imagination alive. "You need the duality," he emphasizes, suggesting that this balance is essential not only for artistic creation but for understanding the complex nature of human experience itself.
