Mary Jo O’Gara is on the faculty of the North Shore Art League in Winnetka, Illinois, where she teaches gouache and oil painting classes. Native to the north shore of Chicago, she has received awards for her work at the Barnsite Art Studio in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, and at Art in the Village, Winnetka, Illinois, where she received Best in Show for two consecutive years. Her work is done alla prima, or wet into wet, usually in one session.

In 2015, Mary Jo provided 65 paintings, depicting rural Illinois, to Over the Rainbow Association, a non-profit, for use in their barrier-free apartment building for disabled adults, in Matteson, Illinois. This building received the 2016 Vision Award from the Illinois Land Institute. Her paintings have also hung in the offices of the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, as well as the Cook County Law Library in Chicago. Mary Jo received her BA from Marquette University and has studied at the Evanston Art Center in Evanston, Illinois, and the Noyes Cultural Art Center also in Evanston