Mitch Cairns: Artist's Mouth

Since graduating from the National Art School in 2006, Sydney painter Mitch Cairns has emerged as a key figure in Australian art. Working across painting, drawing, printmaking, and concrete poetry, he has built a rich, cross-referenced body of work, driven by curiosity. While his distinctive visual language recalls early modernism it is persistently unsettled by humour, personal anecdotes, and contemporary references.

Artist’s Mouth is the most comprehensive presentation of Cairns’s work to date. Ranging from student work to recent series, and including his 2017 Archibald Prize winning portrait, the exhibition charts his development and offers a window into the complexity of his inquiry. It also marks the twentieth anniversary of both Cairns’s graduation and the opening of NAS Gallery. Artist’s Mouth is a joint project with the Institute of Modern Art, Meanjin/Brisbane.

Lucy Latella and Robert Leonard, Curators