ESPACE TROIS, Montreal, August 30, 2006 – Espace Trois is pleased to present paintings and drawings by the late Montreal artist Hester Katz. She filled her canvases with intense rhythms of form and colour. The artist also found delight in exploring print media.. Five linotype prints and one etching are included. All were created within the short span of three years during the artists all too brief life.

Thirty large bold gesture drawings of the figure are exhibited on one wall of the gallery so you may see variations in black and white and also colour of how the artist successfully explored the human body as an expressive object.

The artist’s painted female figures of the 1970’s bring to mind the series of “ Women” paintings by New York artist Willem de Kooning and the Dutch artist Karel Appel’s abstracted expressive figures, both done in the 1950’s. Just as these colourful figurative Abstract Expressionist paintings shocked their viewers when they were first shown, so did Hester Katz’s bold, brightly coloured figure paintings surprise her Montreal artist friends, teachers and family in the 1970’s with their vitality and spontaneity.

Hester Katz understood the making of art as a way to understanding oneself. In addition to studying at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, she took classes at the École des Beaux Art de Montréal and the Université de Québec (UQAM). To further understand her own creativity, and the healing capacity of art, she enrolled in the Master’s of Art Therapy Program at Concordia University. She was a founding member of the Quebec Art Therapy Association (QATA) and designed their logo which continues to be used today.

The HESTER RUTH KATZ SCHOLARSHIP FUND was set up in 1994 by the artist’s family to provide financial aid to students in the Comprehensive Art Program (CAP). Establishing this support for aspiring artists in need of financial assistance was in recognition of the very positive support Hester received from her teachers in the SBC School of Fine Arts. After suffering depression for many years, the artist ended her own life on September 8, 1990 at the age of 37.