Risan’s latest series of paintings, Steps in Migration (2014), records anecdotal passages of his life in Canada, where he has resided since 2008 after emigrating from Iraq. Charting the daily vexation of having to navigate an unfamiliar social environment, many of the included canvases show partially rendered figures completed with a thin white casing of paint that signal an in-between state. The artist’s self-portrait, a bald character with glasses, sometimes emerges in full, often with a skeletal body that leaves him exposed, or is otherwise represented as a disproportionate head on a drifting bust, a metaphor for hyper-awareness. Scenes unfold with protagonists who are in close proximity yet shown at odds, and inanimate objects that underline the absurdity of interactions. Lopsided chairs station his figures while hollow megaphones, microphones, and empty speech bubbles allude to ineffective communication.