Hi, my name is Nancy Rourke. I am a Deaf artist. I was born and raised in San Diego, California; my parents did not know I was Deaf at birth until I was six years old. Doctor said I had learning disability and speech impairment. Not so.

I started drawing and painting at the age seven as a way of communicating with my family. I was always drawing and painting. I exhibited my artwork from painting rocks to canvases at art fairs, art contests and galleries. I went to art school to study graphic design and painting at National Technical Institute of the Deaf and at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. I attained a Master of Fine Arts in Computer Graphic Design/Painting.

I had my very first Deaf Artists Show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1979. I became one of the Twelve Deaf Artists at Heart, Eye, Hand exhibit at the Ankrum Gallery in Los Angeles, California. After the Ankrum show, I stopped painting and worked as a graphic designer for Xerox in San Diego, California. Later, I became a palette designer for the 20th Century Fox, and created color palettes to colorize classic black & white films: Casablanca, King Kong, Sherlock Holmes, and many of the John Wayne films. Two years later, I quit my filming job and moved to Seattle, Washington. I was a graphic designer for five years at Microsoft Corporation, designing icons for Windows. Suddenly, I got laid off. I moved to Denver, Colorado and became a full time artist. That means coming back to painting after sixteen years since the Ankrum show. I won second place in the oil painting category, at the Northern Colorado Regional Juried Show. I paint every day. I travel and do exhibits across the country. The paintings from 2001 to 2009 were done in portraits, landscaping, cityscaping, still life, etc. before I got involved in Deaf Art. This is where I found exactly what I wanted to do.

In 2010, I received my first Puffin Foundation Grant for my painting project, studying on Deafhood, Deaf Culture, Audism, Deaf History, Deaf Politics, ASL and Bilingualism.

I am a prolific artist. Every week new paintings come in the website: www.nancyrourke.com