Mary Burke | A Return to the Essence by Mara Blackwood.
Though she is landlocked in her Pennsylvania studio, the sea has always been another home for artist Mary Burke.
“The raw beauty of the Irish land and seascape almost feels spiritual,” says Burke, who grew up wandering the countryside and coast of Wexford and later the hauntingly beautiful shores of Cape Clear.
During her childhood, Burke recalls that she was constantly making something, and she quickly discovered a passion and natural skill for drawing. But it wasn’t until the end of her secondary education that she realized that art could be more than a hobby for her.
The catalyst was a substitute art teacher who appeared when the regular teacher became ill. The substitute was a professional artist himself, and his encouragement inspired Burke to apply to an art college, a possibility she had never considered before.
With his help, she prepared a portfolio that landed her at Crawford College of Art and Design, where she graduated with honors in printmaking.
During her time at college, Burke met an American who was studying violin making in Ireland, and after graduating the couple moved to the United States and married. Once again, Burke found herself near the ocean as she briefly pursued a degree in art education in Rhode Island and spent time in coastal Maine, where her husband had grown up.
As she started her family, it became increasingly difficult for Burke to make art a focus in her life, especially with all of the equipment that printmaking required. But her passion for art returned as she studied oil painting with Bruce Becker at the Warehouse Studios in Reading, Pennsylvania in 2010.
“I was immediately captured with this medium, as I loved the subtlety of oil paint to capture fine detail, and the depth of color that is possible when working in oils,” Burke says. She began painting in a realistic style with the goal of helping people “see the ordinary in an entirely different way.”
More recently, Burke’s art has taken a new direction as she has shifted her focus to watercolor and multimedia. As she began experimenting with these new vehicles for expression, her work took on a fluid quality that sparked a feeling that she was returning home.
“In a way I feel like I have come full circle,” she muses. “As an art student my work was very abstract, taking inspiration from the various textures and shapes of the landscape and environment around me.”
Working this way creates a sense of freedom akin to what she has always experienced on the coast. Appropriately, the abstracted landscapes she creates are “influenced by the raw beauty of Ireland's landscape and sea, and the Maine coastline,” she says, “but now I am more interested in capturing the essence of a landscape or the mesmerizing quality of the sea.”
Burke’s inspiration comes from a combination of sketches, drawings, and photographs. The spiritual aspect of her Celtic roots also informs her work; her focus is on capturing the feeling and mystical experience of the landscape rather than exact details.
“I am trying to work in a very fluid way, as this feels a more expressive and organic process, especially with watercolor,” she says. “I also use a lot of non-traditional tools, as this forces me to relinquish control and let the medium itself flow naturally. Watercolor is a beautiful and incredibly unique medium; it almost has a mind of its own. The less control the greater the impact or image.”
This powerful impact has certainly not been lost on viewers of Burke’s art, who have commented on its “vibrant energy” and “ethereal air.”
Over the years, Burke’s art has been featured in a number of shows, including Warehouse Studio group shows, the Berks Art Alliance Member Show, and shows at Art Plus Gallery. She received first place in 2015 the Hamburg Area Art Alliance Juried Show as well as third place in the 2016 RACC Show and an Honorable Mention in the Light Space Time 9th Seascape Art Exhibition.
Burke is currently a member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, Oil Painters of America, Art Plus Gallery, Lancaster County Art Association, and Studio B Gallery.
“My mission as an artist is to create art that almost becomes a language of the soul, a quiet inner awareness [in viewers] of both themselves and the world around them,” Burke says. “To find strength and beauty in simplicity. And, to allow the medium itself to become more and more a co-creator in the work along with the viewer, where I am not dictating the image or the outcome.”