raafat ishak - anzac Station

T Projects developed the creative vision for the Creative Program including the temporary and the Legacy Artwork Program, which will delivered permanent art commissions in each of the new stations of the $11 billion Metro Tunnel Project. We developed and led the creative program from the bid stage in early 2017 through to the presentation and selection of preferred artists concept designs in 2020.

Images courtesy of Metro Tunnel

raafat ishak

Raafat Ishak was born in Egypt and lives and works in Melbourne. He has an undergraduate degree in fine arts from the Victorian College of the Arts, a post-graduate degree in architecture history and conservation practice from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from Monash University.

Working across painting, sculpture, installation and site-specific drawing, Ishak's practice is informed by the history of painting and architecture. His practice is generated through ubiquitous acts of research, experimentation, withdrawal, exclusion and fatigue.

He has been awarded a number of Australia Council grants including residency at the Cite International des Arts in Paris in 2013. His work is held in many significant public and private collections. He is a founding member of Ocular Lab Inc and is Head of Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.

In Future Wall Painting, Ishak celebrates the architectural and cultural landmarks of the St Kilda Road precinct through abstract forms and geometric drawings. While essentially abstract, the artwork contains references to Australian pre-contact, colonial, and military histories as well as architectural references to monuments and buildings associated with the St Kilda Road ceremonial boulevard. Native fauna and flora are dispersed throughout the design in a nod to the boulevard's pre-colonial landscape.

The overriding concept behind my design for Anzac Station is to create a work that people will walk past at that very special moment of moving from above ground to the tunnel underneath. The work becomes part of that experience of being in transit.’

– Raafat Ishak