Drawing inspiration from Milton Avery, Arthur Dove and Marsden Hartley, Bourke recreates her world using her imagination and a vivid color palette. Her paintings celebrate the simple everyday places of summer memories, family outings and the nature found in her backyard. Her dreamlike paintings are designed to be anyone’s memories. Bourke writes about her work, “I am just trying to create something beautiful for people in a time when there is quite a lot of darkness.”

Born and raised on the north shore of Long Island, New York, a 1976 graduate of Boston College, Bourke gradually made her way north to midcoast Maine. Her work has been featured on the cover of numerous publications including A Place Called Maine and Classics of Young Adult Literature, Down East Magazine and LL Bean’s catalog.

Read Bourke’s Q&A with Stacey Kors, Portland Press Herald: https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/07/art-qa-mary-bourke-manages-to-part-with-large-scale-paintings-for-greenhut-show/

Read Bourke’s Q&A in ZEST Maine: https://zestmaine.com/joy-from-the-natural-world/

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