Genevieve Mae Burnett grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts where her grandfather had a reputation as a major art collector.  Tragically his collection of early 20th century and 19th century art was destroyed in a fire, but the young Burnett benefited from having the cultural influences in her heart--a benefit that would sustain her through a lifetime fight with internal auditory hallucinations that continue to be persecutory and unending.  Because she was struggling in school, her mother brought her to see a psychiatrist at the Northampton State Hospital.  Burnett recalls, as a six year old girl, asking the doctor about the older patients whom she saw ambling the hallways there.  The psychiatrist noted her exceptional drawing ability and encouraged her mother to foster this talent for Burnett's sake of self. She did.

Burnett began to have a sense of herself as an artist when she was sixteen. She had a first exhibit when she was eighteen. She did not have the opportunity for traditional academic training because of the chaos brought into her life by her illness; however, she has surpassed the abilities of many artists with degrees by her unbroken output of emotionally succinct and vibrant oil paintings made despite serial involuntary and voluntary hospital stays.  Her career is truly astonishing for her courage and its success against the odds. She is widely represented in collections in New York City and New England and is a favorite at the Outsider Fair at the Puck Center in NYC each January.  She has shown from Boston to Washington DC, and in 1998 was part of a traveling exhibit--Truth from Darkness--that circulated the United States.

Her primary medium is oil paint, which she handles with delicacy.  She cites several favorite artists including Vincent van Gogh, of whom she is familiar with and often quotes his letters. She counts Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali as influential as well. The latter, Dali, she often cites when she says of the act that she is painting 'the mystery of delight'.