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<!-- EDIT BELOW THIS LINE Katerina Mertikas {nee Patrinos} was born in Tripolis Greece. Her parents are Antonios and Georgina Patrinos. She has one brother Harry A Patrinos who resides in Washington D.C. Katerina's love affair with art began in childhood. She always spent hours sketching, drawing on anything she could even as a young girl in Greece. Her family emigrated to Canada in the 1960s and lived temporarily in Montreal, then moving to Ottawa to be with family. After her brothers birth in Canada they moved back to Greece and built a new home on their existing home and property. Again, after 3 years they came back to Canada. Greece had seen hardships post WW2, so it wasn't easy to successfuly raise a family there so they found comfort in living in Canada and all the opportunities Canada could give them.

Katerina fell in love while still high school with Dimitry Mertikas who was visiting family in Ottawa and soon thereafter they married. They have two daughters Loukia Zigoumis and Gina Mertikas Lavictoire. Both her daughters married and have children of their own, Loukia and Constatine have Christos and Dimitry. Gina has a 3 children, Katerina (named after her maternal grandmother) James, and Alexandra.

In 1990 Katerina started painting with acrylics and after many friends had bought her art was encouraged by a dear friend to take her work to a gallery. While showing her art in Ottawa at the gallery, an onlooker who just walked in asked about the price of one of her paintings and it was sold right away. This was the beginning of Katerinas long and meteoric rise in the art world. She was soon selling out in solo exhibitions in many Canadian galleries.

Katerina would work tirelessly 7 days a week starting at 5 a.m. She would take her daughters to school and run to her home studio to paint. Her recognizable art is mainly of children in bright vibrant colours, children enjoying their daily lives, be it in sports or catching a school bus. While all her works sell she is very well known for her iconic winter pieces. So much so that UNICEF international in 1993 after discovering Katerinas art used her work on their brochure cover that was sold internationally and her cards sold out and UNICEF has since selected her art for their campaign worldwide for the aid of children. In fact Katerina was Ottawa s first UNICEF artist. This led to much news coverage in Ottawa and it was to her delight and her paintings would continue selling at a fast pace.

Art shows were a fun part of Katerinas life and she enjoyed travelling to many cities in Canada with her family to attend the shows. This gave her and her family a wonderful opportunity to see much of Canada and see the beauty that Canada has.

Soon thereafter many organizations and companies would use Katerina's art for their campaigns such as the Canadian Lung Association, The Canadian Juvenile Diabetes Association, Children's Aid Ottawa and Toronto and Sick Kids Toronto, Ottawa Civic Hospital, Ottawa Heart Institute, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario to name a few.

Her passion for children was intense and she really cares for children and their well being, so many opportunities arose for her work to be shown, sold, auctioned and while she would make a living from this work, which she calls play, she would be helping children, all this to her delight.

She has received awards and recognition from her peers, her city, and she was delightfully surprised when she was presented with City of Ottawa Community builder award in 2013. Katerinas heart is always in the right place and when she was painting and listening to news in 2014 when a corporal was shot and killed by a terrorist in Ottawa while standing guard at Ottawa's war memorial she quickly painted a painting of the soldier and his little son saluting him. This painting was immediately heralded as a great tribute to the fallen soldier, Nathan Cirillo and at the urging of friends, and Ottawas former Mayor Jacqueline Holzman she was quicly introduced to the current mayor of Ottawa Jim Watson who saw potential in the painting as a great and sad reminder of Canada coming together in times of trouble. The original painting hangs in the mayors boardroom among other great Canadian artist such as the Group of Seven. With her Ottawa gallery Koyman Art gallery they made limited editions of the painting and sold it across Canada and proudly made $75,000.00 that was put into the trust fund for the late Corporal son, Marcus. Katerina presented the embellished limited edition to the grandmother who is raising the young boy now.