The “Novel Corona King” editorial cartoon (from March 2020) was featured in “The Next Big Thing” (Aug-Sept 2020) at Studio Channel Islands, Ventura, CA and published in the article by Marta Hanson, “From Sick Man of Asia to Sick Uncle Sam,” Current Affairs (Sept 2020).
After three years at the U.S. Embassy of Croatia in Zagreb (March 2018-February 2021), the “States of Being II: Diverse,” painting has returned to the US. The exhibition remains on the website of the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies Program.
Kelly Burke has had a lifetime of painting and carpentry experience. She discovered the world of art while living abroad one year in Germany. She now enjoys painting on smaller surfaces like canvas and paper. She often makes her own frames and stretches her own canvases to better craft the size and material that best suits her paintings. Her political-conceptual artwork deals with major issues of our day related to social justice and racial injustice. The many paintings included in the “Reimagined American Flag” series push the symbolic potential of the 50 stars and 13 strips as artistic interventions intended to inspire constructive conversations that positively change the American psyche one flag, one person, and one conversation at a time. The many pieces in the “States of Being” series visually push the potential meanings of the 50 stars/states of the US flag at both the national level and the level of individual identity and consciousness. The Daily Issue series tackles US problems one reads about on the front pages of our newspapers from a visually symbolic perspective intended to spark conversation. Using materials from oil and acrylic paints to charcoals, pastels, and oil bars, she also captures animals with empathy and explores the world of abstract expressionism.
Please contact Kelly to request more information about exhibiting any of her artwork. You can email directly at kburkeworks@gmail.com or find her on Facebook.
A portrait of your pet may also be commissioned. Please feel free to discuss the range of possible mediums most appropriate for the animal portrait you may wish to commission. Kelly donates 10% of the sale price of all her animal paintings to support the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS):
Awards
- Best of Show: “All Lives Matter Flag“ Painting, “Uniting the States: Giving Form to a Vision of Unity,” Community Art Therapy Services Online Exhibition, Jan 1-Feb 2, CA 2018
- First Place: “Orange, White, and Black” painting, Orange is the New Black Exhibition, Ashton Gallery, San Diego, CA 2017
- Honorable Mention: “Don’t Lives Matter? Flag” painting, Op Ed Exhibit, The Art League, Alexandria, VA 2016
- Viewers’ Choice Award: “All Lives Matter Flag” quilt, Home Arts, Quilts section, Maryland State Fair, 2016
- Third Place: “Black Lives Matter Flag” painting, “Art as Politics,” Touchstone Gallery, Washington, DC, 2016
- Faculty Choice Award: “Black Lives Matter Flag” quilt, non-judged section, Minnesota Quilt Show, 2016
Media
- Mindy Todd, host of “The Point” at local NPR’s WCAI station of Cape Cod, interviewed Benton Jones, Executive Director of Cape Cod Museum of Art about the “We the People” exhibition (March 28, 2019). He briefly mentioned Kelly’s Collage Key for her ALM Flag as one of the art works representative of the show (7:22-7:44).
- Claudia Shambaugh, host of “Ask a Leader: Inquiring minds wanna hear,” at KUCI (K-University of California Irvine) radio station covered the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art’s “Art as Protest” exhibition (June 2017) in a public radio exchange titled Art as Protest in Santa Ana with the guest curator of the exhibition, Tyler Stallings. They focused specifically on the artist’s intention behind and people’s reaction to Kelly’s artwork “Reimagined American Flag Series: ALM flag.” The interview with Stallings starts at 30:49 and they discuss this painting from 35:20-39:05.
Other press mentions: - Charleston City Paper review by Mary Scott Hardaway (3/7/2017) of Fabulon “We, The People” exhibition includes mention of all flags
- Carolina Arts News review by Tom Starland (3/11/2016) of Fabulon “We, The People” exhibition includes image of DLM flag
- The Art League, Flickr Exhibition of Op Ed Exhibit
- The Art League, the Op Ed Exhibit Program with list of awards & honorable mentions
- WHUT TV interviewed artists at the “Art as Politics” show in Washington, D.C. as part of their Artico program, including a segment on Kelly’s Black Lives Matter Flag: first aired 9/21/2016 (@10:16-14:22, of 26:47 mins)
- Penn State News review by Regina Broscius of Reimagined American Flag series show (9/7/2016)
- Montgomery News review of Penn State-Abington University show in the student union (9/7/2016)
- Washington Post review of BLM flag in “Art as Politics” show in Washington, D.C. (8/12/2016)
- East City Artnotes review of BLM flag in “Arts as Politics” show in Washington, D.C. (8/11/2016)
Education
- The Schuler School of Fine Art, Animal portrait workshops, January 2013-January 2017
- The Mitchell School of Fine Art, Animal portrait class, Summer 2013
- MICA, School for Professional and Continuing Studies, Fall 2013, Fall 2014
- Klemens Wuttke, Atelier Eins, Nuremberg, Germany, January-August 2012
- Mira O’Brien, The Berlin Drawing Room, Berlin, Germany, July-September 2011
