Agnes Ishak

I was born in Baghdad and gained a diploma in Civil Engineering. I am an Assyrian Christian. Since childhood I had an interest in painting and drawing.

After graduation in 1987 I sought private art tuition and learnt the usual skills of painting and analysing and mixing oil paints. I started painting old buildings and landscapes, and exhibited in a gallery where I worked for three years prior leaving Iraq.

In 1990 I went to Greece searching for a better life, and continued painting – boats, the harbour and the surroundings. In 1992 I arrived in Wellington as a refugee. I married in 1993 and symbolism became the subject for an early exhibition held in a local gallery in Wellington.

In 1998, just prior to the birth of my daughter, Aeluna, I had an exhibition on refugee body language which reflected my own experience and others that I worked with for three years in Wellington.
In November 2000 we moved to Auckland.