Preeminent Iranian-American artist Ali Banisadr s canvases depict a complex swirl of action and abstracted figuration across a stagelike picture plane. Varied histories inform these paintings, ranging from the artist s synaesthesia, to Persian miniatures, to the multi-figure works of Brueghel and Bosch, and the gestural imaginations of Willem de Kooning and Max Ernst. Born in Tehran in 1976, Ali Banisadr grew up during the Islamic revolution and the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. In 1988, he and his family emigrated to Turkey and then to California. In 2000, he moved to New York City where he currently lives and works.