Bio

Mary Burke  is an emerging Contemporary Irish Artist.  She studied Fine Art (Level 5) &(Level 6) before undertaking a BA (Honours) in Visual Art, South East Technological University.  She is currently working from her studio in Kilkenny city.

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Artist Statement: 

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"My art practice deals with nature,  and also culture and traditions and exploring their place in a contemporary sense.  My work is inspired by the pcsyhic in the  Irish land and sea and people.. My work often investigates that deep connection between humans & the land.   

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My starting point within the research involved taking photographs, sketching outdoors and gathering organic materials from the local environment.  Combined, they are then used for inspiration back in the studio, where the creative process is intuitive and spontaneous. I create Sculptures, Paintings and Monoprints.

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Paintings:

As a painter I am familiar with a variety of media.  Skilled in landscapes and more abstract compositions, I work in oil, acrylics, watercolour, gouache and mixed-media such as collage. My landscape compositions often start from plein-air sketches which are then worked up back in the studio."

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Sculptures:

A wide range of physical materials are used for sculpting, such as wood from the hazel and ash trees, leaves, ferns, reeds, clay, sods of turf, cloth, wool. Experimentation with these organic materials set the mood of my work.  A sensitive approach to the particular qualities of each material helps decide the ultimate result. My sculptures are created from wood and clay  that sometimes  result in a hybrid artwork incorporating monoprints on cloth.  Mark making is used to express the psychic in the land, that have been absorbed over time from the stories of the people that have lived there, generation after generation.  The process involves creating gestural marks, some controlled and some uncontrolled. 

I build the sculptures in response to the space in both the landscape and in the studio. Interested in what is absent in my sculptures, I have also found that while working in the core of the handleability, my best designs arrive. Considerations are given to the relationship of the sculptural forms with the larger spaces surrounding it.  How each piece engages with each other dictates the final installation.

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