Diane Burko

Her work addresses landscape, climate change and environmental activism.

• Name — Diane Burko • Birthplace — New York City, US • Field — Painting, photography • Training — Skidmore College University of Pennsylvania • Illustration — Diane Burko adds finishing touches to her 2021 painting "Unprecedented."

Diane Burko was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945. Burko received a B.S. in art history and painting from Skidmore College in 1966, and an M.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. She is professor emeritus at the Community College of Philadelphia, and has taught at various schools across the country such as Princeton University, Arizona State University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She has served on the College Art Association board of directors. Burko was the founder of FOCUS, Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts, a two-month-long all city festival in 1974, which was reprised 50 years later, in 2024 as (re)FOCUS.

Burko's work has been shown at Locks Gallery, Cristin Tierney Gallery, Cindy Lisica Gallery, LewAllen Gallery, Tufts University, the Michener Museum, the Bernstein Gallery at Princeton University, Rowan University Art Gallery, Walton Arts Center, Zimmerli Art Museum, the Tang Museum, the National Academy of Sciences, the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, UK. Burko's early work consisted of drawings and paintings of iconic American landscapes such as the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell, as well as international sources such as the French Alps. In 1977, while flying with Light and Space artist James Turrell in his Helio Courier over the Grand Canyon, Burko captured her first aerial photographs of the landscape. Burko's paintings draw from art historical sources such as the Hudson River School and the appropriation of landscape imagery in popular culture. Past subjects include the landscape of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the coast of California, the fjords of Scandinavia, and the volcanoes of Hawaii, Italy and Iceland. In 2000, this led to Burko's interest in volcanic tectonics and glacial geology, as well as climate change. Burko depicts scientific data through visual motifs, incorporating Landsat imagery, mapping data and U.S.G.S. repeat photography archives. From 2007 through 2011, Burko developed the project Politics of Snow, investigating the historical comparisons of global climate change through images culled from glacial geological data recorded throughout the world. Other works depict the same location seen from different points in time, showing the effects of climate change on a specific site – a method glaciologists call "repeats." Such photo-documents have been shot by scientists and field researchers at U.S. Geological Survey and Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, such as David Arnold, Henry Brecher, Dan Fagre, Ulysses S. Grant IV, Karen Holzer, Carl Key, Bruce Molnia, Sidney Paige, Tad Pfeffer, Lonnie Thompson and Bradford Washburn. Judith E. Stein observes, "To my horror, I found myself adding my own mental image to each sequence, extrapolating from what [Burko] shows, thereby envisioning the next, un-depicted step in the warming process—our dystopic future." Since 2013, Burko has embarked on research expeditions to various glaciers and reefs around the world. Through these locations, Burko explores the impacts of climate change, with particular emphasis on glacial melt and coral bleaching. In 2013, Burko traveled to Antarctica in January and the high Arctic in October. The latter was sponsored by the nonprofit organization The Arctic Circle, and was supported by a Fellowship in the Arts, awarded by The Independence Foundation in Philadelphia. These expeditions led to a body of work entitled "Polar Investigations." In 2015, Burko flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate to discover the Patagonian ice field of Argentina. In 2017, her exploration of landscapes affected by climate change continued with New Zealand's Fox and Franz Josef Glacier, along with The Great Barrier Reef. This experience marked a shift in her practice from glaciers to reefs. In January 2018, Diane Burko travelled to American Samoa, Oahu, and Honolulu with the non-profit project "Kai 'Apapa," a multimedia exploration of American coral reef systems, in collaboration with climatologist Samiah Moustafa, composer/video artist Christine Southworth, and composer/clarinetist Evan Ziporyn. The project aims to raise awareness of the rapid changes to coral reef systems, and present the scientific ramifications through art and performance. The project has received a nearly $31,450 grant from the MAP Fund. Independently, Burko's recent work includes video and lenticular pieces based on footage from this expedition, alongside paintings of reefs. Following the record-breaking wildfires intensified by deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in 2019, Burko has pivoted the focus of her paintings towards the Amazon Basin and the relationship between extractive industry and ecological degradation.

Burko has spoken about the role of art in climate discourse at universities and conferences including the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the Atlantic Council (Washington, D.C.), the Michener Museum, the Zimmerli Museum, The Painting Center (New York City), the University of Colorado, Boulder. Burko's 2018 exhibition at Rowan University was accompanied by the panel "Art and Science Perspectives on Climate Change," hosted in partnership with the School of Earth and Environment and Rowan University Art Gallery.