SYDNEY.- From 1 May to 11 July 2026, the National Art School Gallery will present Mitch Cairns: Artist's Mouth, a major survey exhibition of work by Sydney-based painter and Archibald Prize winner Mitch Cairns, celebrating his twenty-year artistic career since graduating from the National Art School (NAS) in 2006. It features some 48 works, mostly from institutional and private collections, including a still life made as a graduating student and his 2017 Archibald Prize–winning portrait of partner and fellow artist Agatha Gothe-Snape. Also marking the 20th anniversary of NAS Gallery, this is the largest and most comprehensive show of his work to date.

A joint project by NAS Gallery and Meanjin/Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA), it will be shown at IMA from 10 October to 20 December 2026.

Curated by NAS Gallery Curator Lucy Latella and IMA Director Robert Leonard, Artist’s Mouth traces Cairns’ evolution, reflecting his ongoing engagement with the poetics of daily life and his artistic heroes.

Cairns’ work has been exhibited at major institutions across Australia, with his recent solo exhibitions Restless Legs (2025) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Wollongong Art Gallery. His works are held in national collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of

Contemporary Art Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Murdoch University Art Collection and Monash University Museum of Art, as well as private collections in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the United States.

In addition to his own art making, Cairns founded and curates exhibition programs for Ankles (2018–2021) and Cellar Door (2023–ongoing) and was curator of Primavera 2019: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The first edition of his artist publication Penne and Other Shorter Written Works is included within the accompanying Artist's Mouth exhibition catalogue, published by NAS and IMA and available for pre-sale from 30 April at nas.edu.au/shop.

Co-Curator Lucy Latella said: “Mitch Cairns has established himself as a prolific, meticulous image maker over the past twenty years. This selection of work across various media highlights his anachronistic, cross-referential oeuvre, which is persistently unsettled by humour, local references, and a sensitivity to contemporary lived experience.”

Co-Curator Robert Leonard said: “My introduction to Cairns’ work was through his painting Geranium Pots (Interior) (2016). It shows a workman who could be constructing a painting or pulling it apart. It strikes me that Cairns does both at once.”

NAS Director and CEO Dr Kristen Sharp, added, "Mitch Cairns is one of the great contemporary success stories to come out of the National Art School, and we are delighted to celebrate his achievements with this outstanding survey of work. It is a pleasure to celebrate Mitch's 20-year career, that coincides with the 20-year anniversary of the NAS Gallery, in a very special homecoming that we're excited to present."

Mitch Cairns is a painter whose mostly figurative work balances pictorial playfulness and painterly virtuosity. The pairing of wit and discipline generates works that are extraordinarily complex and subtle. Many of Cairns’ subjects come from his every day, domestic, family life, encompassing love, banality, self-reflection, eroticism, melancholy, and anxiety. He also pays homages to artist and literary heroes. Indebted to concrete poetry, Cairns often uses words and text as material. In addition to his paintings, he makes works on paper, including drawings, prints, and collages, and has published his poetry. He has recently made text works in bronze and on mirrors.

In 2026, NAS Gallery, Sydney, and the Institute of Modern Art, Meanjin/Brisbane, are partnering in the presentation of Mitch Cairns: Artist's Mouth, a survey of 20 years of Cairns' practice with loans of 48 works from institutional and private collections, as well as the artist's representing gallery and personal collection. Curated by Lucy Latella and Robert Leonard, the exhibition will be accompanied by a substantial catalogue.

Cairns has presented solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2025), Wollongong Art Gallery (2025) and Heide Museum of Modern Art (2015). He has exhibited in major group exhibitions including Thin Skin, curated by Jennifer Higgie, Monash University Museum of Art; Free/State: 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, curated by Sebastian Goldspink, Art Gallery of South Australia; The National 2021: New Australian Art, curated by Abigail Moncrieff; and Painting. More Painting, curated by Max Delany and Hannah Mathews, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Cairns was awarded the Archibald Prize (2017) and the Brett Whiteley Traveling Art Scholarship (2012). He curated Primavera: Young Australian Artists in 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Cairns has produced a number of artist publications: Pebble (2021—2024, with Mitchel Cumming), Selected Scuffs (2021), The Reader's Voice (2015), and Dip or Skinny Dip (2014). He has founded two exhibition programs as an adjunct to his studio activities: Ankles (2018—2021) and Cellar Door (2023—ongoing).