Ayad Almissouri

Originally from the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Ayad Almissouri is a political artist whose work addresses themes of displacement, war, identity, and survival. Drawing from personal history and collective memory, his practice is grounded in both resistance and resilience, using art as a means of critique, reflection, and cultural preservation.

Ayad holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the American University in Washington, D.C., where he deepened his engagement with the intersections of art, politics, and global history. He also completed his post-baccalaureate in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned a BA in Studio Art from San Diego State University.

Ayad teaches Studio and Art history courses across the Pacific Northwest. In addition to painting, he is a practicing printmaker and regularly teaches printmaking courses, encouraging students to explore the power of image-making through traditional and experimental techniques. His teaching style emphasizes both technical rigor and critical engagement, inviting students to develop their craft while examining how power, place, and history intersect with creative expression.

His artwork, ranging from oil painting to monotype and mixed media, interrogates the architecture of violence, the imprint of conflict on urban spaces, and the psychological landscape of exile. Influenced by lived experience and transnational identity, his imagery speaks to the rupture and reconstruction of belonging across borders. He has exhibited regionally and nationally, with recent bodies of work focusing on post-war environments, cultural erasure, and the persistence of memory.