Join one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists, Raafat Ishak, and SAM Artistic Director Danny Lacy for an evening conversation event exploring Ishak’s 2026 commission for the Furphy Family Art Wall on SAM’s Level 4. The pair will delve into Ishak’s artistic and academic practice, and the local history that lies behind Sherbourne Bear at Tallygaroopna, his new site-responsive Art Wall installation at SAM opening on 1 March.

Event details:

Date + time: Thursday 26 March, 6 – 7pm

Location: Level 4, Shepparton Art Museum, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton

Price: Free – registrations essential

Register now

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About the artist:

Raafat Ishak (b. 1967 Cairo, Egypt, migrated to Australia in 1982) is a Melbourne-based artist and Head of Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts. Ishak has exhibited regularly throughout Australia and overseas for over two decades and recently completed the Metro Tunnel Legacy Artwork commission, a site-specific installation at the newly opened Anzac Station in Melbourne. His work Responses to an immigration request from 194 governments was shown at the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in the curated exhibition The Future of Promise, 2011, and was featured in a major solo exhibition Eye Looking at Large Glass Broken at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2023. Ishak is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.

Photo: Raafat Ishak by Giulia McGauran