Joyce W. Cairns

Born in Edinburgh in 1947, Cairns was brought up in North East Scotland, where her father was a school master.

She went on to undertake a further period of study at Goldsmiths' College before returning to Aberdeen in 1976 to take up a teaching post at Gray’s School of Art.

Cairns visited Tunisia, where her father saw active service, and later Bosnia and the concentration camps of Eastern Europe.

Often working on a large scale, Cairns' preferred medium is oil on board [6] and the artist uses a grid to plan out elements in a composition.

[7] Her work has been written about in many publications including War Tourist[8] and an interview with Janet Mackenzie in Studio International Contemporary Arts Magazine.