Working as an artist most of her life, Mary Jo Parker O'Hearn has learned from other artists and independent instruction rather than through a formal art education. She began as a fashion illustrator for Chas. A. Stevens in Chicago at the age of 18 and later worked as an artist for the LaGrange Citizen and the Chicago Tribune, while also doing freelance advertising and fashion illustration work. For the last 20 years she has worked as a muralist and trompe l'oiel artist in homes and restaurants locally in the Chicagoland area as well as across the country. Some of this work can be seen in the book "Sophisticated Surfaces" by Karen Aude.
The last few years Mary Jo has focused more on non-commercial work. Her work ranges from figurative to abstract, frequently drawing from family memories and past experiences. Often she incorporates assemblage and collage. More recently, Mary Jo has begun exploring the ancient medium of encaustic. This is an amazing and luminous medium created with pigmented hot wax. The encaustic surface can be smooth as glass or highly textured, a juxtiposition which she enjoys playing against one another in some of her pieces. Encaustic also provides her with an excellent medium for assemblage and collage.
Mary Jo's work has been featured at Woman Made Gallery, Belle Kaye Gallery and Jett Sett Gallery in Chicago, The Oak Park Art League, Edward Jones Satellite Gallery, Prairie Title OPAL Satellite Gallery, Calypso Moon Gallery, Harrison Street Gallery, The Cheney Mansion Summer Show, Pamela Penny Studio, Out of the Box Gallery, and Yoga Trek Studio all in Oak Park, IL, as well as Circle Theatre in Forest Park IL, Woodridge Public Library, Woodridge IL, and North Coast in Minneapolis, MN.