Most of the works in the exhibition are nocturnal where moons rise over winter landscapes; figures gather in forests; storms churn unseen. Night, for Banisadr, is not the absence of vision but a condition in which transformation becomes possible—where consciousness loosens, symbols migrate, and latent structures surface.

At the center of the exhibition is The Scribe (2026), a large-scale painting depicting a Shakespearean, hybrid figure—half person, half paint—suspended within a hallucinatory space. The work embodies a dual identity Banisadr recognizes in himself: thinker and painter, scholar and dreamer. Historically, the scribe is a preserver of information; here, the role expands. This figure does not merely record but revises, challenges, and extends knowledge. Banisadr’s conception is informed by his long-standing engagement with medieval Islamic polymaths associated with the House of Wisdom in Baghdad—figures such as Averroes, Ibn Sina, and Al-Hazan— whose work translated, corrected, and transformed Greek philosophy through experimentation and inquiry. Algebra, optics, medicine, astronomy, and systems of hospitals emerged not through repetition, but through creative revision. It was this vast, evolving body of knowledge—circulated, contested, and enriched across cultures— that later reentered Europe and became a critical foundation for the Renaissance, a period Banisadr holds in deep regard as a moment when art, science, philosophy, and humanism were once again understood as inseparable pursuits. Transformation in Al-Kīmiyā is also grounded in the natural world. When poets awake, it becomes night (2026) depicts a gathering in a forest under a wolf moon, inspired by an experience hiking with Banisadr’s children through a snowy, nocturnal landscape. The painting began outdoors, its initial marks made with branches directly on canvas. The forest appears as both primordial site and psychic threshold—inhabited by shamanic figures that echo the painter himself. For Banisadr, the forest exists just beyond the boundaries of consciousness: a place where instinct overtakes orientation, yet also the reservoir from which civilization itself is built. Poetry, like painting, becomes a vehicle for expressing what cannot be documented or photographed— phenomena accessible only through lived experience and symbolic form.

This migration of symbols continues in The Moon Watchers (2026), a work on paper combining pastel, charcoal, and ink. Here, gestural mark- making collides with X-ray–like imagery, evoking the tension between the organic and the machinic. Banisadr’s subtle engagement with technology—present throughout his practice—points to the ways digital systems reshape perception and visual culture. The image operates as a threshold: “When the soul wants to experience something,” Banisadr notes, “it throws out an image in front of it and then steps into it.” Images are not data but living carriers of possibility—symbolic seeds that migrate across time and cultures, echoing the thinking of art historian Aby Warburg and Banisadr’s own rhizomatic research practice.

The exhibition’s sculptural works extend these concerns into three dimensions. Cast in bronze from maquettes originally formed from clay, bark, branches, and plaster, figures such as Gilgamesh, Cyclopes, Animus, Anima, and The Alchemist appear at once ancient and futuristic—talismanic protectors for an unstable age. Gilgamesh draws from Banisadr’s sustained engagement with the ancient epic poem, while Cyclopes collapses Homeric myth with science fiction, recalling both Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odysseyand the unblinking eye of HAL, an emblem of artificial intelligence and technological omniscience. Animus and Anima reference Carl Jung’s archetypal binaries, proposing psychic duality not as opposition but as coexistence.

In The Alchemist, vulnerability itself becomes transformative: a figure mid-metamorphosis, surrendering to elemental forces as parts of the body turn to gold. Across all media, Banisadr’s works function as mnemonic devices—pricks to collective memory—reminding viewers of a shared humanity rooted in earth, ritual, and imagination, even as contemporary life drifts toward abstraction and simulation. Al Kimia ultimately proposes transformation not as rupture, but as continuity: an ongoing dialogue between myth and technology, nature and culture, darkness and illumination—where visual chaos may signal, paradoxically, a cosmic order yet to come.

This exhibition ultimately proposes transformation not as rupture, but as continuity: an ongoing dialogue between myth and technology, nature and culture, darkness and illumination—where visual chaos may signal, paradoxically, a cosmic order yet to come.