Joyce Gunn-Cairns MBE
30/1 West Pilton Gardens
EDINBURGH EH4 4EG
Tel: 0131 476 3877

D.o.b. 21 October 1948

STATEMENT

My work has three strands:
The first is expressive figurative.  Using my own middle-aged  body for stimulus I am seeking to integrate in my painting and drawing the memories and media messages which have informed and continue to inform my understanding of myself as a woman and as a sexual being. My engagement with my body is also impelled by my desire to challenge the forces  - political, religious, sexual - which seek to exact a conformism to a value system that ultimately crushes each person's right to, and ability to, speak with her/his unique voice, and define her/his physical and metaphysical shape.  There is a religious dimension to all of my work, both traditional and unorthodox:  traditional insofar as I am inevitably influenced, in my life and in my work,   by my inheritance of the christian faith and its values;  and unorthodox in that I no longer align  myself with any one faith, while simultaneously honouring my Christian inheritance, and the influence in my life of angels, demons, and all manner of animate and inanimate life forms. 

A second strand to my art work is portrait drawing.    I draw heads of friends, writers, musicians, and actors.   Drawing literary figures has an enormous appeal for me because it enables me to combine my passion for literature with my passion for drawing. Books are my great love.   I always read the work of the writers I draw.  I like ideally to draw a person regularly and over an indefinite period.   I drew the poet Tom Scott (1918-1995) over a period of many years;  similarly the writer, scholar and academic Professor David Daiches.    Other writers I draw include
A L  Kennedy, Ali Smith, Lesley MacDowell, Richard Holloway, Colm Toibin, Alexander McCall Smith, Christine de Luca. 

The third strand to my work is wildlife studies.   I sketch from life and from stuffed animals and birds, and when drawing the latter try to seek a connection with the spirit of the dead animal.

EDUCATION
BA(Hons), Drawing and Painting
MA, German and Comparative Religion

WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery - nine works
The Scottish Poetry Library - one work
Balliol College, Oxford - one work
Jesus College, Cambridge - one work
Edinburgh University - one work

WORKS IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Scotland, England, Australia, Austria, USA, Holland

REVIEWS
"...Joyce Gunn Cairns ... has taken to printing like a natural..." .
Duncan MacMillan, The Scotsman, 6 February 2009
" Joyce shows how closely allied to feeling true drawing can be ...".
Duncan MacMillan, The Scotsman, October 2004
Reviewed regularly and favourably since 1996, by
Duncan MacMillan, Giles Sutherland and Tim Cornwall

CATALOGUES/PUBLICATIONS
Unspoken Lines
Joyce Gunn Cairns
Published by The Henderson Gallery, and held in the collection of The Fine Art Library, George IV Bridge.
See www.joycegunncairns.com for details of other publications and catalogues.

AWARDS
Nancy Graham Book Award, VAS exhibition in RSA, 2006
Greyfriars’ Painting Prize, WASPS Festival Exhibition 2000
Lily McDougall Prize, Visual Arts Scotland, RSA, 1999
Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition, Second Prize of £1000

EXHIBITIONS
Forthcoming exhibitions:
Skin Deep at the Royal College of Surgeons, examining facial deformity/plastic surgery. To be held during the Edinburgh Festival.
Exhibition of figurative work on a literary theme, New Hall College , Cambridge, May 2011
Exhibition of heads of actors , playwrights and directors at The Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, to be held in spring 2011

Past exhibitions:
Writers Museum, Edinburgh
A Painter’s Dozen (Thirteen Edinburgh Writers), 2005
Inverness Gallery and Museum, Highlands and Paris: Daughters of Eve, Touring exhibition curated jointly by the Highland Council, and by Julie Lawson, Chief Curator, SNPG
Scottish National Portrait Gallery:
The Naked Portrait, summer 2007
Modern Women, 2003 –4
Keeping Faith, 2003-4
Drawing in New Acquisitions (Portrait of David Daiches), 2001, Featured in National GalleriesBulletin
Narcissus: Self-portraits in the 20th century, 2001. Reviewed five times
Writers of our time: 2000/2001
Portraits of Tom Scott: 1999
Talbot Rice Gallery: Drawing David Daiches: Portrait drawings of Professor David Daiches, Writer and Academic, April/May 2004. Exhibition accompanied by catalogue.
Kunstlerwerkstaff Bahnhof Westend, Berlin: Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition, 1998, 1999
Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh: joint exhibitions 1996 - 2007
Perth Museum and Gallery: SAAC, 1998
Chessels Gallery: Children/Artists, 2000
Joint show, 1997
Kingfisher Gallery: Art and the Female Form, 1989
Collins Gallery, Glasgow: Sons and Mothers 2003/Whistler Festival
SSA, Royal Scottish Academy,  almost annually since 1996
VAS, Royal Scottish Academy, almost annually since 1996
Landratsamt, Munich, 2008 (twinning with German artists)
Scotland House, Brussels 2008/9 - Drawings of Scottish poets in celebration of Centenary of the birth of Robert Burns.
Royal Society of Watercolours, 1999-2003
Royal Scottish Academy exhibition, 1999, 2000
Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop, 2008
The Henderson Gallery, 2008
The Lang Byre Gallery, Banchory, 2008
Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop, 2008
The Henderson Gallery, 2008
The Lang Byre Gallery, Banchory, 2008

See www.joycegunncairns.com for an overview of Exhibitions History

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page updated 25/6/2010