Blurring the line between order and chaos, It Happened and It Never Did epitomises Banisadr’s unique ability to ingeniously capture countless dualities throughout his artwork. It Happened and It Never Did instantly engages the viewer through the dynamic intricacy of the composition and the disorientating gestures of the brushstrokes. A phantasmic, opulent realm of vibrant colour envelops its spectators, playing optical games, as flecks and blurs of light and dark disguise any truthful realism. Banisadr’s meticulous attention to detail and visual illusion enables him to imaginatively bridge stillness and abstraction, with motion and figuration. These complex worlds, exuding effervescence and brimming with flora and fauna, seamlessly encapsulate Banisadr’s own past – memories of living with the terrors and violence of the Iran-Iraq war – together with visual references to the great masters of Middle Eastern, European and American iconography. It Happened and It Never Did reveals an ethereal scene, in which a series of events are unfolding, however the smears and impressions of the paint conceal the actions of the figures.

Banisadr’s experience of synaesthesia while painting allows him to transgress the limits of his senses, and construct magical worlds beyond the confines of realism. The rhythmic disarray of Banisadr’s exquisite works invites the viewers to wholly immerse themselves in these dramatic and unexplored states of flux. With its natural colours, elements and undulations of a rural landscape in combination with a kaleidoscopic frenzy of energetic, human-like movement, It Happened and It Never Did is a prime example of Banisadr’s unparalleled ability to create absolute balance. ‘It’s very important for me that there is no central focus. I want every single corner of the work to be as interesting as the rest. To have something to attract the eye. I don’t want any hierarchy’ (Ali Bandisadr, quoted in Graham Southern, Ali Banisadr: One Hundred and Twenty Five Paintings, London, 2015, p. 7).