Nancy Rourke is a Deaf artist, muralist, activist, and Native American. She is an enrolled member of the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians in the Kumeyaay Nation, San Diego County. 

Rourke's paintings bear witness to the experiences of Deaf people who have lived in a world controlled primarily by people who carry the history that “Deaf people are born senseless and incapable of reason” (Aristotle). To challenge this idea, her paintings show both the truth of how Deaf people are oppressed and how their community celebrates collective identity and culture.

Rourke found her purpose after exploring her Deaf identity and making political art that addresses social justice, activism, human rights, and Deaf solidarity. She has exhibited art internationally, including at the Silesian Museum, Katowice, Poland; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY; Laurent Clerc Museum, La Balme-les-Grottes, France; and Make Tank Art Gallery, Exeter, Devon. Her latest project is a painted fifty-six-foot-wide by nineteen-foot-high mural at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.