Catherine Zakas studied painting at the Heidelberg College of Art, and in Berlin in 1976 under Karl Rosenberg, she then continued her studies in the USA. She has exposed her works in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Greece, Germany, and in the United States in Rhode Island, Texas, New Mexico and Washington D.C. She is a creative and multitalented artist, composing wonderful clarity by using vivid colors, and producing superb works of abstract expressionism.
Born in 1936, Catherine Zakas was largely influenced by the 1950s growing up. New York City became the focus for modernism on an international scale during the Post-War period. Many artists had travelled to the city during the Second World War, fleeing in exile from Europe. This led to a substantial pooling of talent and ideas. Influential Europeans such as Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers and Hans Hoffmann provided inspiration for American artists whilst in New York, and influenced cultural growth in the United States for many decades to come. Abstract Expressionism, a form of painting that explored notions of spirituality and the sublime, dominated the 1950s. A number of artists focused on the formal properties of painting, and action painting took inspiration from the political freedom of the United States, in opposition to the strict limitations of the Soviet bloc. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Frank Kline, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb were predominant artists of this period. The male dominated environment has been subsequently revisited to recognise the contributions of female artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Louise Bourgeois, amongst others.