SMH: The National: using art to tell stories of family who could not speak
:quality(82)/media/news/20037910d92e236459fe00cf3e7e718e8951f213.jpg)
SMH: The National: using art to tell stories of family who could not speak
Article by Neha Kale
Domesticity has long informed NAS alumni Mitch Cairns’ visual vernacular. He’s an artist for whom motifs from everyday life – an apple core, say, or a bathroom mirror – become the stuff of witty and intelligent paintings whose rewards grow the longer you look.
When he was commuting to Sydney’s National Art School, he supported himself by working as a labourer for his father, David, a bricklayer.
“That was my first exposure to physical work,” he says. “It was early thinking around labour, structure – just very basic sort of things.”
Cairns says his father has visited every one of his exhibitions. As part of his presentation at Carriageworks for The National, the pair have built a brick wall together.
Read the full article through the link below.
Photo: Steven Siewert
Latest News
Friday 29 May 2026
:quality(82)/media/Makers.jpg)
Friday 29 May 2026
The Makers Exhibition brings together works by NAS staff across teaching, technical, curatorial, administrative and library areas, celebrating the diverse creative practices that shape the school community. Presented as the launch exhibition for Third Space, the exhibition highlights making as a shared and ongoing part of life at NAS. Third Space will be open for the duration of the show from 11…
Friday 29 May 2026
:quality(82)/media/events/abbott_second-meeting-burn.jpg)
Friday 29 May 2026
Please see below for current and forthcoming exhibitions and events featuring our staff and alumni. Oliver Abbott: Processing This exhibition explores how personal and collective histories are constructed by revisiting relics of architecture and infrastructure unique to the Tweed. In Processing, Abbott reveals parallels between the construction of a painting and the way memory distorts, rearrange…
Thursday 28 May 2026
:quality(82)/media/news/260325_Drawing-Week_hero_Peter-Morgan_002-1.jpg)