artists

Joyce Gunn Cairns MBE

“I am concerned in my work as an artist to express my belief in the equality of all sentient life forms. Realisation always falls short of my ideas, but the struggle is relentless for any artist who avoids the pitfall of complacency.“

Born in Edinburgh in 1948, Joyce trained in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, having previously completed a degree in German and Comparative Religion at Aberdeen University. She has become one of Scotland’s most cherished artists, exhibiting for 35 years, with work in the permanent collections of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, The National Gallery of Ireland, several universities including Edinburgh and Cambridge, and many private collections.

An appreciation of literature and a wry observation of human and animal behaviour – and the comfort derived from these relationships, is at the core of Gunn Cairns’ expressive figurative work. Along with wildlife studies she has been drawing poets, playwrights , novelists and actors in a delicate and perceptive manner for most of her career.

"Joyce Gunn Cairns' remarkable paintings ... demonstrate how many different kinds of visual truths there are ;..... in these graphic and unflinching images, she not only manages that sense of reaching out to touch; she conveys how, from inwards, we feel outward; what it is like to be in one's own skin..." Duncan MacMillan, The Scotsman, Feb 2011

She was awarded MBE for services to the arts in the June 2004 Queen's Honours List.

Example of Artist's Work

(Click on thumbnails to view. Images record work held in stock or sold. Please check with gallery for other work available.)