Joyce Cairns RSA, RSW
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Title: Footdee Icons
Date: 2008
Bronze, H 17 cms x D 11 x W 21
"For the past 29 years, Joyce Cairns has lived in the former fishing village of Footdee, surrounded on three sides by water: to the west, Aberdeen Harbour, to the south, the River Dee and to the east, the North Sea. This environment has been central to her work with ships and harbour paraphernalia and the unique “shedscape” of the village forming a charged backdrop to her autobiographical fantasies.
In many of Cairns’ works the dominant female figure plays the leading role, sometimes idealised, sometimes painfully real: inhabiting a world of intermeshed fact and fantasy, luring the unsuspecting and being herself unexpectedly lured. In different contexts this siren epitomises hope, or fear, death, compassion, loneliness or loss.
She has not worked with clay since second year as a student at Gray’s School of Art in 1969, so to create something for Painters in Bronze was a real challenge. “I had no idea where to start, what tools to use, but once all was in place, I really enjoyed making the piece. I wanted the sculpture to be a three-dimensional reflection of the stylised iconic imagery that often occurs in my painting.“
Biography
Joyce Cairns was born in Edinburgh and educated at Mary Erskine School for Girls, after which she completed one year of nursing training at The Western General Hospital. Cairns then studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, The Royal College of Art, London, was awarded a Fellowship at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham, followed by teacher training at Goldsmiths, University of London.
She was appointed Lecturer in Drawing and Painting at Gray’s School of Art in 1976, leaving in 2004 in order to complete the work for her major exhibition “War Tourist” which was shown in Aberdeen Art Gallery in 2006.
Cairns has won many awards and has exhibited extensively in Britain and abroad. She was elected a member of The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1979 and a Royal Scottish Academician in 1985. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections such as Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; McMaster Museum, Hamilton, Ontario; Unilever; Fleming’s Bank; Manchester City Art Gallery; The National War Museum at Edinburgh Castle to name a few.
For more information visit www.joycecairns.co.uk
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