Joanne Gair - Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated

In her first year in the Swimsuit Issue (1999), she painted Rebecca Romijn, Heidi Klum, Sarah O'Hare, Michelle Behennah, Yamila Díaz-Rahi, and Daniela Peštová in a variety of beachware. The first Gair Sports Illustrated body paintings occurred at Richard Branson's Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. Some of these also appeared in a 2001 Sports Illustrated calendar, and Heidi Klum's tie-dyed swimsuit bodypainting earned her and Gair the cover of the German edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In 2001, the Swimsuit Issue had a goddess theme. The cover featuring Elsa Benítez used the caption "Goddess of the Mediterranean". Gair contributed to this theme by body painting the models as statues of goddess: Klum (Athena), Díaz-Rahi (Thalia), Veronika Vařeková (Aphrodite, Venus), Molly Sims (Flora), Noémie Lenoir (Luna), Fernanda Tavares (Aurora), and Shakara Ledard (Diana) as goddesses. At about the same time in 2001, her work featuring Klum was featured on the cover of the tenth anniversary of Shape Magazine. In 2003, she painted a seven continent world map on Rachel Hunter, a fellow New Zealander, and purposely represented Australia and New Zealand "down under" (on the buttocks). In the 2004 issue, when she painted Jessica White, Petra Nemcova, Marisa Miller, Noemie Lenoir, Melissa Keller, and Hall, the paintings featured both body painting and real bathing suit portions in most images. However, bathing suit portions were not apparent in all images. In the 2005 issue, she painted Bridget Hall, White, Miller, Anne V, and Sarahyba with athletic team outfits. In the 2006 issue, she painted multiple bathing suits on Klum. One of these appeared on the cover of the German edition of Sports Illustrated. It was the ninth time that Gair and Klum worked together and the seventh time that they did so for Sports Illustrated. In the 2007 issue, where music was the theme and Beyoncé Knowles was featured on the cover, she painted rock and roll related tee shirts and bikini bottoms on Daniella Sarahyba, Miller, Praver and Ana Paula Araujo. In the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, when she painted bathing suits on Quiana Grant, Jessica Gomes, Marisa Miller, and Tori Praver, the average sitting time for the subjects/objects was thirteen hours.

The photographers in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2004 were respectively Antoine Verglas, James Porto, Michael Zeppetello and Steven White for the Swimsuit Issue works. From 2005–2007 Gair took the photographs of her body paintings herself. Verglas again photographed the bodypainting for the 2008 Swimsuit Issue. No body painting pictures have been chosen as the main image on the cover of the Swimsuit Issue. However, in the 2005 Swimsuit Issue (pictured left) in which Carolyn Murphy is the cover model, Jessica White was shown as an inset on the cover in a Miami Dolphins jersey body painting by Gair. Thus, as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue photographer Gair debuted on the cover in a sense. In 2006 a small cropped portion of her photograph of a bodypainting of Klum appeared in an inset on the cover, but no bodypainting was apparent.