Joe Burke was born in a small farming town in Iowa. He didn't stay there long, moving away before he was one year old, Joe would go on to move to a different state in the US about every two years until he finally moved out on his own, and to Chicago in 1984. He continues to work in that area today.

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Joe's artistic influences, including Modigliani, Magritte, and Dali are as varied as the places he's called home.

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A skilled artist and painter, Joe has the technical ability to create photo-real paintings, and has done a number of portraits on commission early in his career. Today, he considers photo-reality to be the function of cameras.

Joe's work continues to evolve—with origins in classically trained life drawing, black and white photography, and film-making, today he focuses primarily on working in oils on canvas.

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Joe describes his most recent paintings as "Figurative Surreality." Getting his inspiration from his five children and step-children, he interprets what he sees and what he knows of them.

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