A Northwest native, Iskra grew up moving back and forth between a bucolic working horse farm at the foot of Mt. Rainier and a political activist home in Seattle’s inner city. She draws inspiration from these early experiences of the extremes of the rural/urban divide and its wildly divergent cultures. In much of her work she explores the emotion of dislocation and the need for sense of place, using architectural forms as metaphor.

In the industrial landscape Iskra finds abstract beauty and a vibrance of purpose in the archetypal design of useful things. To create her portraits of history and place she uses many media, including painting, drawing, mark making and found surface, combined in subtle and surprising ways with photography and produced as limited edition prints. Trained as a traditional printmaker and calligrapher, she is an innovator in digital imaging, creating work that matches and exceeds the beauty of traditional methods. She has a BFA in painting from the University of Washington, and exhibits in galleries throughout the Pacific Northwest.