User:Toward or Towards?/sandbox

=Bistyek=

Life and Work
Ormeya Zagros (born 1996), known professionally as Bistyek, is a Syrian artist based in Winnipeg. His art focuses on the immigrant and refugee experience. His style has been compared to that of Jean-Michel Basquiat and the German Expressionism movement, the latter of which he claimed he "previously had no idea existed." Bistyek is self-trained.

He is of Kurdish descent. After he and his family were persecuted in Syria, they moved to Lebanon. They moved to Canada in 2015 and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2017. After working a series of jobs ranging from summer camp counselor, construction worker, and barista, Bistyek quit and dedicated the next several months of his life to painting. During this 3-4 month period, Bistyek reportedly produced roughly 30-40 paintings.

His work was discovered by Canadian filmmaker Geordie Sabbagh, who subsequently received a grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts to make a film about Bistyek's life and work. Since 2020, he has had several shows in Winnipeg and Toronto.