Bon Papillon

"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 

Tom has been painting from an early age encouraged by a threepenny bit, given to him by an art teacher for one of his drawings.
Tom grew up in Scotland and attended Edinburgh College of Art. He pursued a career in advertising with Scotland’s leading agencies before moving to Canada in 1981 to find new challenges.
 After a successful career in advertising, as an art director and creative director in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg,Tom decided to breathe again and fulfill a lifelong ambition by painting full-time.
 Now repatriated in Scotland Tom works mainly in oil on canvas, on a broad range of subjects including portrait commissions. Tom’s work is exhibited in galleries in Scotland and across Canada

'I use a subtle palette and paint entirely outside, hoping to capture the mercurial weather, light and moods of the Isle of Skye. I like to portray the feeling of Skye through an intuitive response to the changing landscape and its colours. I often paint in the same places at different times of the day, observing and absorbing the changing days and seasons.

Being within the landscape, feeling the elements while seeing my surroundings change, produces, I hope, the sense of the particular moment in my paintings. My style of painting is to capture the scene in a single session with no reworking.'

Fiona Watson's  delicate prints of flora and fauna, birds and confectionary, pebbles and portraits are full of colour and character. With a background in Biological Sciences, she later studied printmaking at the Glasgow Print Studio and now works in several media including etching, digital printing, photography, collage and painting.  Sources of inspiration include beachcombing, travel, music, ephemera, wild goose chases, overheard snippets of conversation, family and friends. 

Fiona has exhibited extensively both at home and abroad and is a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London.

Senja has a passion for wild places and travels throughout the mainland and islands of Scotland by motorbike or campervan; hiking, sailing or kayaking to reach isolated areas. She carries compacted painting materials which enable her to work directly on location whenever possible, feeling that this lends a freshness and personal quality to the work, allowing it to become not just a painting but a very real part of the adventures. 

Gio makes quirky ceramic figures and faces and loves mark making  on the clay, using found objects to create texture and pattern.
Growing up in Botswana, she was always fascinated by women making and being creative and loved drawing patterns in the earth. An Italian mother also influenced with her decorative style and love of the ornate.
‘I yearn for the simplicity of childhood where I was at one with nature. I love the texture of the natural world: rocks, pebbles, wood... I create lots of texture on my figures then rub oxides into them to obtain an interesting and lively surface.’

Heather makes beautifully detailed and imaginitive prints using wood engraving. This is a relief printmaking technique, using the endgrain of boxwood; fine tools are used to engrave into the prepared surface which is highly polished so that the tool cuts smoothly.  Once the engraving is under way, a print can be taken by inking the surface of the wood block, whereby the engraved lines remain clear of ink and show as white lines and textures when printed. Wood engravings tend to be small as the wood used tends to be from small, slow-growing trees with a close grain, such as boxwood. The prints we show are taken from the original wood blocks and are not giclees or photocopies; they are printed by the artist, either by hand with a wooden spoon or by using a relief printing press. The prints are produced to a limited edition, usually after which the block is resurfaced so it can be used again. Colour prints are produced eitherby using multiple blocks, by using reduction printing, or by using varying techniques, like careful rolling of different colour inks etc.

Kelly-Anne currently works and lives in a small coastal village in North East Scotland. Her main sources of inspiration are aged frescos of Italian Renaissance painters, Geisha and Oriental style, and the design and texture of fabrics. Described as "accomplished and powerful" and "a modern Klimt" by The Herald, Kelly-anne describes her work as portraying the human form and emotions. "I manipulate the figure and its surroundings by exploring the contrasts between the angular shapes surrounding the figure and the soft contours of the body."

Thora is a Scottish painter-printmaker working from her rural studio in Milnathort.
 She graduated in 1961 from the Edinburgh College of Art with Honours in Fine Art and an Andrew Grant Postgraduate Scholarship and Travel Award.
After working in at Aberdeen Art Gallery carrying out restoration, cataloguing and curation, she returned to work part time at ECA until 1993. During that time she 
 exhibited regularly with the RSA, the RSW and the SSWA, as well as numerous shows in Britain and overseas.
Travels have led Thora to study printmaking in the University of Colorado and beautifully observed pieces on her studio walls tell of trips to Romania, Amsterdam, London and Florence. 
Much of her output is closer to home, however; gardens, sunsets over the fields, cats rolling at her feet in the studio. There is a feeling of intimacy in her carefully observed snapshots of life; her drawing is instinctive and perfectly captures fleeting moments.

Jackie creates semi-abstracted, highly atmospheric oil paintings, weaving beautiful and evocative visions of the Scottish landscape with her sophisticated use of colour and texture. Jackie lives in Arbroath where the sea and its ever-changing colours and moods provide the main inspiration for her work. 

I am a portrait painter based near Glasgow. I work mainly in oils for figurative pieces inspired by Post-Impressionism, 50s American advertising and Pop Art. I have a healthy obession with burlesque and cabaret and dabble in flamenco baile.
A portrait artist working quietly away in a studio in Bishopton, I am currently portraying the beautiful people from the burlesque and cabaret scene. I am always keen to try and paint a new face, even though I have enough material to keep me painting for the next 10 years.

I have always been drawn to create, paint and weave stories around it all.
 A childhood obsessing over illuminated projects led to art college in Norwich and London then work as a freelance illustrator and picture researcher/archivist.
My paintings are part diary, part learning curve. Usually figurative, the characters are often my avatar, acting out autobiographical narratives: recently they have taken more of a life of their own, however, and a cast of characters are developing their own story.
Colours, pattern and ideas often come from observation during travels, absorbing the contemporary design and historical works of a place.

 I design and create one-off ceramic sculptures of people, all of which capture the observed essence of human behaviour. I like to think that my sculptures are humorous and slightly whimsical and that all of my pieces are unique in both form and personality. 
My inspiration comes from observing life around me: I only make figures of happy people enjoying themselves. Human nature is immensely interesting to me and I want to express it all in my sculptures. I do not seek anatomical perfection, preferring instead a stylised technique that I feel retains the expression of human behaviour.

Angela is German by birth, and studied linguistics before moving into art, combining language with the images.Working largely with printmaking, Angela's work is largely figurative, especially family, friends and the many creatures that she has accumulated into her household. Dogs, cats, horses, hens and 'various other critters' appear in cannily observed studies that amuse and touch the imagination.

"What does it feel like to walk a dog in the rain? What is going on in the little dog's head when it looks at me like that?" 

Angela finds printmaking ideal for her work as it allows her the freedom to draw and focus on the expressive qualities of the subjects in a very direct way. She is a member of the Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop and Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio.