By Louisa Cleave
Art was the only comfort for Croatian refugee Milena Sopic after she was forced to flee her war-torn country to safety in Italy.
For two hours a day, her only free time from work as a servant to Italian families, she made ink drawings of the stunning architecture in her temporary homeland.
Sopic is now living in New Zealand, and her drawings are included in the first major exhibition of Croatian art and craft by immigrants and New Zealand-born members of the community.
The trained architect fled her 160-year-old family home two years after Serbs occupied her hometown of Benkovac in 1991.
"In Italy, art was my healing," the 45-year-old said.
"To survive I couldn't afford to think about what I had lost because it was so painful when I was forced out. I drew looking forward."
Sopic decided to move to New Zealand in 1995 but when Benkovac was liberated a few months later, she returned home.
She spent two years travelling through Croatia and the surrounding war-torn countries of Bosnia and Slovenia, photographing damage she later illustrated in her artwork.
Sopic came back to New Zealand and instead of bombed buildings nature is now her subject.
"I'm drawing One Tree Hill at the moment," she said.
The exhibition at the Upstairs Gallery at Lopdell House, in Titirangi, features art from paintings to pottery and woodwork to glass. It runs until April 5.
Art helps heal loss and pain of war
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