Stuart Cairns is an Irish artist whose practice is concerned with investigating the environment and his relationship with it through walking, photography, drawing, making and the collection of found objects. Centred on a love for materials, materiality and a sense of place he combines found objects, manipulated materials and fabrications as a physical drawn language. These quiet, small forms sit as poems to the landscape, suggesting wanders by the sea, wonders in the forest and small moments in the city. They show the richness of the material world, the wonders of the everyday which can light up the imagination. Abstracted forms of vessels, implements and tools are referenced, placing human presence within the work and a sense of place. The resulting objects speak of an implied life, of a past and a place, of things being carried, left and lifted once again.
Cairns has exhibited widely; selected exhibitions include Collect , Somerset House, London 2022, Tool Kit, Pragmata Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2021, Nothing To Look Forward to but the Past Tulca 2020, Galway 2020, Retracing Nature, Make Hauser & Wirth, Somerset 2019, Narratives in the Making, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales 2017, Silver Speaks, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2016, Side to Side, The National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland 2015, and Fit For Purpose, The V & A, London 2012.
His work is in the public collections of The Ulster Museum, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the University of Ulster and the National Museum of Ireland as well in the collections of numerous private collectors.