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 left Iran, first to Turkey and then to California. In 2000, he moved to New York City where he currently lives and works. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2005, and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2007. Since his first solo exhibition in 2008, Banisadr has exhibited in the United States and abroad. His paintings have been featured in international surveys, such as “Love Me/Love Me Not: Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan and Its Neighbors” at the 2013 Venice Biennale. His work was also included in “Rebel, Jester, Mystic Poet: Contemporary Persians” at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (2017), which traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017). Most recently, his work has been the subject of the two-person exhibition “Micro-Macro: Andrew Sendor and Ali Banisadr” at MOCA Jacksonville (2019). “Ali Banisdar: Foreign Lands,” a solo exhibition of his work, is currently on view at Het Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands until 25 August 2019. Among public collections owning his work are the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; The British Museum; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Francois Pinault Foundation, Venice; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Museum der Moderne, Salzburg. Banisadr has had solo exhibitions at Sperone Westwater in 2014 and 2017.