Tom Yurko was born in Hairy Hill, Alberta but has lived in Mexico, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and St. Paul, Alberta. He studied fine arts and photography at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Alberta. Many of his abstract and landscape paintings hang in private and public collections, including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. After retiring in 2004, Tom moved to Edmonton. He is a past member of the Cold Lake Artisans Guild and the Alberta Society of Artists.