Joyce Cairns is a Scottish painter whose work explores memory, family, identity and the psychological weight of personal experience. Working predominantly in a figurative and expressionistic language, her paintings often combine autobiography with wider historical and social themes.

 Born in Edinburgh in 1947, Cairns studied painting at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen before completing postgraduate study at the Royal College of Art in London. She later taught Drawing and Painting at Gray’s School of Art for almost three decades.

 A major strand of Cairns’ work has examined the legacy of war through family history and personal memory, most notably in her 2006 exhibition War Tourist at Aberdeen Art Gallery.

 She was elected a Royal Scottish Academician in 1998 and became the first woman President of the Royal Scottish Academy in 2018, serving until 2022. She is also a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and an Honorary Member of the Royal Society of British Artists.