OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, March 5th, 2011,  7 – 9 p.m.

Katherine sculpture Justice, from The Phoenix Series, will be part of an exhibition featuring women artists who are also activists (an image of this sculpture has been used on all the publicity post cards for Dr. Dhafir’s case).  The exhibition will be held at Artrage Gallery in Syracuse, New York, from March 5, 2011 12:00 pmtoApril 23, 2011 4:00 p.m.


ARTIST STATEMENT

Katherine has felt passionately about the defense of civil liberties since the age of fourteen when she saw a documentary of the Allies going into the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. As a result of this, in 2004 she attended the 14-week trial of local Muslim Dr. Rafil Dhafir. Dr. Dhafir, an Iraqi-born American citizen, founded the charity Help the Needy and sent aid to starving Iraqi civilians during the brutal 13-year, U.S. and U.K.-sponsored UN embargo on that country.  UN statistics show that, throughout this time, 6,000 Iraqi children under the age of five were dying every month as a direct result of the embargo. For his crime of compassion, Dr. Dhafir was convicted and sentenced to 22 years.  Dismayed by the gross injustice she witnessed, Katherine has worked to let people know about the case through articles she has written and her website: www.dhafirtrial.net. Her sculpture, Justice, from The Phoenix Series, embodies the hope that justice will triumph in the end.  Katherine will give the sculpture to Dr. Dhafir upon his release.