Joanne Gair - Career

Career

Gair, who is New Zealand-born and was raised in Auckland, lives in the United States and is based in Los Angeles, California. In 1977, she began teaching dance at a New Zealand primary school. She moved from New Zealand at the age of 21 and had a variety of stops on her way to Los Angeles. Most of the time was spent in Australia and Amsterdam,until she ventured to Los Angeles at the time of the 1984 Summer Olympics, after five years away from home. With the help of the Cloutier Agency she obtained a work permit. She then approached the Chanel and Gaultier beauty salons to offer her already well-respected make-up artist services. They both accepted her and she further solidified her reputation to the point where instead of being asked if she was George Gair's daughter it was more common for her father to be asked if he was Joanne Gair's father. Her early work in the music industry included album cover and music video work for David Lee Roth, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, and Mick Jagger. One of her early successes was being employed to do Roth's 1986 Eat 'Em and Smile album cover. These experiences led to work with Madonna, which started with music videos for "Express Yourself" and "Vogue". She has also done work on music videos for Aerosmith and Nine Inch Nails. Her work on the 1997 Nine Inch Nails video for "The Perfect Drug" won her the makeup portion of the best hair/makeup in a music video at the Music Video Production Awards. She had also won awards for Madonna's Frozen. Among the other notable musicians she has worked with is Gwen Stefani, who won Most Stylish Video at the 1999 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards working with Gair on the video for No Doubt's song "New". Gair also worked on ad campaigns and for photo features in efforts to exhibit the artistic visions of others.

Eventually she expanded beyond make-up artistry to body painting to express her own artistic vision. In August 1991, Demi Moore caused international artistic commotion by appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair seven months pregnant with her daughter Scout LaRue in the photo More Demi Moore, with Gair as the make-up artist and Annie Leibovitz as the photographer. Exactly one year later, she returned to the cover of the same magazine nude as a product of Gair and Leibovitz in a nearly equally as shocking body painting, Demi's Birthday Suit (pictured right). Gair was the primary body painter of this art and the magazine cover art propelled Gair to fame. Fifteen years later, it continues to be considered the most well-known example of modern body painting. The 1992 cover that entailed a thirteen-hour sitting for Gair and her team of make-up artists was a commemoration of the August 1991 photo. The shooting was storied because photographer Annie Leibovitz could not decide where to shoot and reserved two mobile homes, four hotel rooms and five houses. The pop culture attention given to Gair and her body painting led Absolut Vodka to consider an Absolut Gair body painting promotion in 1993.

Gair is considered a Trompe-l'œil body painter, but at times she describes herself more generally and colloquially as an illusionist. She also refers to herself and others refer to her as an image-maker for her contributions to people's perceptions of others. She was originally inspired to specialize in body painting by facial skin adornment of the indigenous Māori people of her native New Zealand. However, the glam rockers and heavy metal rockers as well as white-face geishas, Native American Indians and Indian mehndi all contributed to her inspiration. She began using Sharpies to draw on people in 1977. Her work, which became prominent with the August 1992 Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore, has transcended various media and involved her with leading photographers, directors, super models and celebrities. Gair has worked with leading celebrities (Madonna, Cindy Crawford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kim Basinger, Christina Aguilera, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sophia Loren and Celine Dion) and been in editorial (Vogue, W, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Playboy, BlackBook, and Harper's Bazaar), fashion campaigns (Donna Karan, Versace, Victoria's Secret, Guess, and bebe), cosmetic companies (L'Oréal, Maybelline, Revlon, Oil of Olay, and Rimmel) and mega-brands such as Evian. At one point she was beauty editor of Black Book. Her work with Madonna includes music videos such as Express Yourself, Vogue, Fever, Rain, Frozen, the Blonde Ambition Tour and its subsequent feature documentary Truth or Dare. When Madonna teamed up with Herb Ritts for black and white photographs, Gair did the eyelashes and make-up. Gair has been the subject of numerous television programs and magazine articles, including what was the highest rated episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not?. Her first retrospective was exhibited at the Auckland Museum as part of the Vodafone Body Art exhibition in 2001 and early 2002.

Gair has earned many motion picture credits for work as a make-up artist. In 1996 & 1997, she was employed on three of Moore's films (Striptease, If These Walls Could Talk & G.I. Jane). In addition, she earned a 1997 credit on Playboy: Farrah Fawcett, All of Me for Farrah Fawcett. In 2002, she earned a make-up credit on People I Know for working with Kim Basinger. She also earned a 2003 credit for work on the short documentary The Work of Director Chris Cunningham.