Early Works

At Winchester Galleries on Broad Street

April 4 - 30, 2009

Opening:  Saturday April 4, 2009 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Pat Martin Bates was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1927.  When she was twelve she took Saturday morning art classes from University of Mount Allison professors.   In 1948 she married Al Bates.  They lived in Antwerp in 1956 - 1958 where Pat majored in sculpture and took Honours in Painting at the Academie Royale des Beaux Arts.  The couple moved to Ottawa in 1959, and in 1962 Pat joined Al in Wainwright.  1962 also marks the year that the National Gallery of Canada acquired two of her works.

Pat’s unique contribution as an artist has been to introduce metal collage prints (1959-1980) and perforated paper works (1962 to the present).  The latter genre, sometimes presented in light boxes, includes white on white prints; black on black prints; drawings; collages and paintings.  The perforated works she views as ‘inscapes’ and believes ‘to be contagious.’

In recognition of her contribution to international printmaking Pat Martin Bates won the prestigious Gold Medal Award from the Norwegian International Biennale of Printmaking in 1986 and the much respected Global Graphics Award from Holland in 1993.  She is the only Canadian to have won at that level in those venues, and in the instance of the former prize she is one of only two women to have done so; the other is Bridget Riley.  Other of Pat’s awards are a Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977 and a Gold Jubilee Medal in 2004.  Her most recent honour is her 2008 appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Canada.

Pat is also greatly respected as an inspiring art teacher and spokesperson for the visual arts.