The Makeup Maven Issue #37

While most of us have trouble keeping mascara on our lashes, and lipstick off our teeth, artist Joanne Gair makes up whole new boundaries for the beauty industry

By Justina Blakeney
Published: September 1st, 2008 | 9:37am

If you’ve ever tried to paint a verisimilar still life on a flat canvas, you know how difficult it is. Now imagine that your canvas sweats, shivers, sneezes, and sleeps, and you’ve just begun to conceive of the challenges that face Joanne Gair, the world’s most prominent makeup artist and body painter.

In 1979 when Gair was 20, she was a teacher at a primary school in her native New Zealand. There, in the birthplace of Maori body art, she taught the children Maori legends and interpreted Maori tattoos on the children’s faces with markers and pens. Just a year later, Gair left her students in Auckland but took the markers with her. She hung out in Holland for a year, and that’s where she was introduced to high fashion for the first time. Inspired by designers like Thierry Mugler, she made herself up with innovative attire and makeup. On the streets, strangers constantly approached Gair.

“Young girls would come up to me and say, ‘Are you a makeup artist?’ The terminology then I hadn’t actually heard of. I researched it and found out that I could make a living from it,” Gair says from her Chelsea apartment in Manhattan. So, after a year in Holland, she returned to the South Pacific to Sydney, Australia, and enrolled in a general makeup course.

Gair’s unconventional approach to solving creative problems surfaced instantly. “The first day of class, a model was put in front of me,” Gair says. “She was a gorgeous girl, but she had bags under her eyes that no one could cover up. So I ended up painting a pair of sunglasses on her under-eye bags and had her peering over the top. It was so exciting to do, I went from there onward, blending beauty with imagination.”

Over the course of the year, Gair assembled a body of work that exhibited her raw talent and sense of humor. She continued to develop her portfolio for the next two years in Sydney, and on route to London, ended up stopping over for a brief visit in Los Angeles. Her creative portfolio was so noteworthy, she gained immediate recognition in Hollywood. London would have to wait. It wasn’t long before she was holding brushes up to Tinsel Town’s leading ladies and touring with the likes of Madonna for the Blond Ambition and Truth or Dare world tours. In the summer of 1992, Gair painted a Richard Tyler suit on Demi Moore for the cover of Vanity Fair. “Demi said to me, ‘Jo, this is gonna change your life.’ And it did,” Gair says.

Since then, Gair’s career has proliferated from makeup artist to image-maker and illusionist. Heidi Klum, Elle Macpherson, and Goldie Hawn have been her living canvases, but it was leading ladies in her personal life who proved to be her greatest influence. “I have a very artistic mother who made all of my clothes,” Gair says with a buoyant accent. “I think I subliminally learned to understand draping of fabric and patterns and how they fall onto the body from her.”

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

THE RESEARCH: The long hours don’t just begin on set. Gair spends much of her time in museums and galleries creating her image library. “My research is extensive, but my true inspiration comes from me loving to play with different materials,” she says. To create the ultimate illusion, Gair uses surprising materials including mud, chocolate, flower petals, and crystals.

THE PROCESS: “Body painting is a well-calculated dance of timing, artwork, precision, and keeping on schedule,” Gair says. A full body painting can take as long as 12 hours, from setup to cleanup, so Gair has developed techniques to make the days run as smoothly as possible. She starts on the areas of the body that aren’t going to bend as much, like the chest. “I leave the fold behind the knees, the fold of the arms, the neck area, and any other areas that move a great deal, until the last moment,” she says. “I might have a subject lying on a beanbag with a sheet on top of it, so that they don’t stick to it, and let them sleep for as long as they can until they start to wake or we need them to move over.”

THE COMFORT LEVEL: Being at ease while body painting is key. Gair is very natural with the intimacy that she has with her subjects. “I see it as a pleasure to make sure that the person is very comfortable,” she says. “I look after them from the beginning to the end, including seeing them out the door to be sure that they were properly cleaned off. That is all part of working with a living canvas.”
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FOR ASPIRING BODY PAINTERS

SUGGESTED MATERIALS:
Gair recommends MAC Cosmetics, Make Up For Ever, Smashbox Cosmetics, LORAC, Josie Maran Cosmetics, Amazing Cosmetics, and REEL Creations.
EVEN OUT THE TONE:
According to Gair, getting an even tone over the surface area of the canvas is imperative. “All skin has different variations of color,” she says. “We walk around with the sun hitting our faces, so the face is often darker than the rest of our bodies. It’s all about evening it out.”
KEEP IN MIND:
Increased airport security presents an obstacle. “Flying with makeup is one of the biggest challenges,” she says. “Knowing how to downsize everything, you have to be a lot harder on yourself on what materials to take.” She also warns that the industry is “not all glam” and that a large portion of the work is in the preparation.

JOANNE GAIR BOOKS
• Paint a ‘Licious: The Pain-free Way to Achieving Your Naked Ambitions
(Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005)
• Body Painting: Masterpieces by Joanne Gair (Universe Publishing, 2006)
• Sports Illustrated In the Paint: The Art of Joanne Gair (2007)

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For more info on Gair, visit joannegair.com.