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![\"MIKAELA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4391246_web1_260710-Bistyek-00118.jpg\")
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MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Bistyek says he\u2019s constantly inspired by the Exchange District.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was living in Lebanon as a refugee for seven years, with a big group of friends, but day after day they started to cross the sea from Turkey or Greece. Some of them made it, some of them did not,\u201d says the artist born Ormeya Zagros. \u201cI turned to Mom and said, \u2018I want to go across the sea. I cannot stay here. I don\u2019t see a future here. I don\u2019t see opportunities. There is so much discrimination and racism. I cannot build a life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A United Nations sponsorship allowed for Bistyek, his mother and one of his brothers to make a safer passage, migrating to Winnipeg in 2017 and leaving most of the family behind, strewn throughout refugee camps in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Upon his arrival in Canada, Bistyek worked with resettlement services for Kurdish youth and eventually found work as a Starbucks barista.<\/p>\n
But before long, inspiration struck: he quit his job and began painting at an astounding rate, plugging away on vivid memory paintings of war, family and a distant childhood disordered by conflict. Self-taught as an artist in his youth by using castoff materials such as cardboard or discarded containers, Bistyek for the first time had access to canvases and new material: at gallery shows in both Winnipeg and Toronto, his works sold in the thousands to collectors and newfound patrons.<\/p>\n
Of course, the artist put some of the proceeds toward his living expenses and his expansive practice, which includes clothing design and furniture-making, but Bistyek\u2019s ultimate goal couldn\u2019t be contained within any mural or inside any frame: he was motivated to reunite his family.<\/p>\n
His first exhibition in Winnipeg enabled Bistyek to sponsor the safe arrival in 2023 of his brother Basil, who\u2019d been living in a refugee camp in Iraq; the festivities at the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport went well beyond the standard hug and kiss, as dozens of members of the local Kurdish community sang, danced and drummed with bouquets of roses twirling near baggage claim.<\/p>\n
The work continued, and earlier this summer, Bistyek was able to sponsor the immigration of his older brother, his sister-in-law and their four children; the artist hadn\u2019t seen his brother since 2012.<\/p>\n
The artist was able to show how far they\u2019d come, bringing his family to the Winnipeg Art Gallery, which is hosting his solo exhibition, Forbidden Colours, through August. \u201cThey were very happy. My mother \u2014 over the moon,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve definitely seen some tears in their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibition, like the lion\u2019s share of Bistyek\u2019s visual practice, is grounded in experiences of forced motion and suppressed expression under the boot of a totalitarian regime. The show\u2019s title makes reference to an early, painful memory of classroom bullying.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Supplied<\/p>\n Bistyek\u2019s art features the colours of the flag of Kurdistan, a stateless nation in West Asia.<\/p>\n \u201cIn second or third grade, my art instructor asked us to go home and draw something we liked, and when I came back the next day \u2014 I remember I was the only kid who really cared about drawing \u2014 he went through the pictures to mark them. Eventually he got to mine, and his face changed,\u201d Bistyek remembers. \u201cI raised my hand because I thought I had done a great job \u2014 I thought he was going to compliment the work \u2014 but when I got close enough, he slapped me in the face. I was very shocked. And then he threw the book at me after marking it with a zero.\u201d<\/p>\n His friend explained the transgression. \u201cHe asked me why I would draw something like that. That is the flag of Kurdistan,\u201d Bistyek says. \u201cBut the thing is, what I had done was put three colours \u2014 red, green and yellow \u2014 next to each other. That combination of colours threatens that teacher, but those colours were everywhere in our celebrations, our weddings, our homes, our Nowruz (new year) parties. It wasn\u2019t a flag \u2014 there were no details \u2014 and from that day I started to question myself. What is Kurdistan? Who are the Kurds?\u201d<\/p>\n Until then, red was red, green was green and so forth. In Forbidden Colours, the artist explores the same palette from a mature perspective.<\/p>\n The largest component of the exhibition is called the Room, an eight-by-10 reimagining of the quarters he shared with his mother and siblings at an uncle\u2019s house in Aleppo, where the family moved when Bistyek\u2019s father died in 1997; the artist was only nine months old.<\/p>\n \u201cHe gave us this tiny room, with a door that opened to the street, and that room was everything for us,\u201d Bistyek says.<\/p>\n It was inside that room where Bistyek first drew out the possibilities of a peaceful elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d look at neighbours\u2019 TVs, collecting papers from the streets. My brother started school and gave me my first pencil, so I started to draw all of the cartoon characters. At night, when I couldn\u2019t sleep, I would sketch everything surrounding me \u2014 my mom, my brother. As a kid, I had this thinking that anything could be canvas.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the Room, that means the walls, the window shades and the mattress on the ground, which reads in black letters, \u201cI wasn\u2019t dreaming.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq<\/p>\n The Room is part of the Forbidden Colours exhibition at WAG-Qaumajuq.<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\tThe Wrap<\/p>\n Weekday Evenings<\/p>\n Today\u2019s must-read stories and a roundup of the day\u2019s headlines, delivered every evening.<\/p>\n \t\t\tSign up for The Wrap<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t With his own personal artistic practice in bloom, Bistyek says he\u2019s now more devoted to providing mentorship to emerging and newcomer artists in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n At the new Exchange District caf\u00e9 Passage \u2014 a next-door offshoot to the now-shuttered Main Street caf\u00e9 Parlour \u2014 the artist is working to establish a collective gallery for visual art and furniture. Meanwhile, he and his two Winnipeg-based brothers have begun a housewares studio called 3B out of their mother\u2019s St. Boniface garage; several of their sleek, tiled sidetables and display pieces are on view in the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n The artist credits Winnipeg, and the constant inspiration of the Exchange District, for his climb to success.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in this community has pushed me and helped me to be where I am today. There are many people in my life who I am here because of \u2014 my mom, my wife, my brother, my friends \u2014 and Winnipeg in general,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a small community, but it\u2019s a great one. If you need help, I think people here really step in.\u201d<\/p>\n ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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