BIO
In 2019, after 15 years in commercial photography, a move to New Zealand prompted Mary Lynn Burke to find new meaning with personal work. She resided in remote locations, creating art in solitude and otherworldly terrain. During this isolation in majestic landscapes, she explored new mediums.
Mary Lynn’s work combines expressive layering with movement and chance, creating emotive compositions. Her work navigates the space between vulnerability and belonging while absorbing both the tension and stillness of passing time. She values the contrast of precise and uninhibited mark-making to reflect her journey with nature and feelings. Unconcerned with theme or figuration and shaped largely by chance, she presents color and form with raw openness. Her works draw inspiration from Abstract Expressionism, recalling the lyricism of Manoucher Yektai and Helen Frankenthaler and the zen-like works of Morris Louis.
Mary Lynn works outdoors whenever possible with oil, acrylic, cyanotype, and photography – to intuitively externalize a sensory and spiritual relationship with our natural world. Mary Lynn lives and works in Lexington, Massachusetts, and has exhibited in New Zealand and Boston.
PAINTINGS STATEMENT:
In my studio, the process of painting has evolved in its purpose. I paint to engage with my heart and find connections within memories and desires. Often, I see tender moments awaken and walks in rainforests emerge. Other times, I feel concerns and wishes morphing into pathways toward resolve. Painting for me, is a process of visiting another dimension of reality, where there are so many glorious sources of light, revealing dreams I wouldn’t otherwise have the pleasure to meet.
I’m drawn to make, to experiment, to give a physical representation of my inner dialogue, appreciation for life, discoveries, and desires. My art hovers and forms within a state of wonder, as if playing in a lucid dream. It feels like I am made whole as a result of having methods to release energy, impulse, and awareness. Often windows, bridges, organic shapes, and forts emerge, and my awareness shifts. The more risk and spontaneity in my process, the more growth and bonding the experience produces. It is why I cannot judge my art; the primordial feeling cannot be explained or measured.
I am interested in sharing the beauty and bliss that comes from setting our minds free from want and worry through time spent with nature. I believe every person has experienced a spiritual connection with our environment and can relate to the powerful effect it has had on their mindset, body, and memory. I would love for my art to bring forward these memories for people, reminding them of their place in our living world and their unique beauty and belonging within it.
SOLAR SIGNATURES STATEMENT:
Soon after a move abroad to rural New Zealand, I found myself propelled through an emotional journey towards self-acceptance. During daily walks on local beaches during COVID lockdown, I felt a spontaneous call to create wild, untamed works of art in nature.
Solar Signatures are camera-less impressions on paper, impossible without the light of our sun and the movement of the sea. These works symbolize our natural evolution as if “unfixed” by societal and familial expectations. In the light and from the light, we are unmistakably our truth.
This body of work challenges the superimposed, ultra-filtered, radically controlled displays of human life and our Earth’s landscapes being broadcasted today. Solar Signatures are a prompt to present both our beauty and our struggles in our most honest forms. As in all life, these works will change with age, an impermanence mimicking our sacred self portraits and the self portrait of our dear Mother Earth.
Solar Signatures began in New Zealand in March 2020. This body of work continues in New England, USA.
