Ali Banisadr Quotes

#1. I like to zoom out of the situation so I can see it all and don't get caught up in the little things down there.

Ali Banisadr

#2. As I work day after day, inspirations from different places go into the work. It's combination, but it's also comparative. I'll be reading two books at the same time that are totally different [and] then have two stories mix together.

Ali Banisadr

#3. Painting is a slow process; it takes time to get there, you learn little by little and always want the next painting to be better than the last. For me, success is about this, seeing the slow progress in my work.

Ali Banisadr

#4. When I am working on a painting, everything that I am thinking about at the time be it current events, the books I am reading, personal events, influences, emotions, etc. all find their way into my work.

Ali Banisadr

#5. Say someone tells me their name - that name can turn into a taste or a color and that's how I categorize it in my mind. It's an easy way of categorizing things.

Ali Banisadr

#6. Painting is a way of thinking visually, so whatever is happening with me at the time gets reflected in the work.

Ali Banisadr

#7. When I was taking art history I was always angry that we would skip certain chapters because "it wasn't important." Like, "Let's skip over the Japanese. Let's just get to Giotto, because that's where everything begins." It's like, no. Everything is relevant to me.

Ali Banisadr

#8. People quickly look through things and don't sit and experience. That's a problem with artwork, [because] it's more of an experience than something to quickly look at. It takes a while for everything to unveil itself.

Ali Banisadr

#9. My work makes people understand things in a visual way that I could never understand in a literal way - like the way you deal with and break down problems, and don't come up with answers, but [find] a pathway that becomes clearer.

Ali Banisadr