Joanne Gair facts for kids

Joanne Gair (born around 1958) is a famous New Zealand-born make-up artist and body painter. She is known for her amazing body paintings, especially those featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue from 1999 to 2017. People often call her "Kiwi Jo."

Joanne Gair is considered one of the best in the world at Trompe-l'œil body painting. This is a special art style that tricks your eye into seeing something that isn't really there. She became very famous in 1992 with a Vanity Fair magazine cover. It showed actress Demi Moore wearing only body paint, which looked like clothes. This artwork was called Demi's Birthday Suit.

One of her most famous works, Disappearing Model, was shown on the TV show Ripley's Believe It or Not. It was the highest-rated episode ever! Besides her amazing body art, Joanne Gair has also worked as a make-up artist for many rock and roll stars. She helped them win awards for their style. She is seen as a trendsetter in fashion and art. She also worked closely with the singer Madonna for a long time. In 2001, she had her first art show, and in 2005, she released her first book about body painting.

Becoming a Body Painting Artist

Joanne Gair was born and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. She now lives in Los Angeles, USA. In 1977, she started teaching dance in New Zealand. When she was 21, she moved away from New Zealand. She spent time in Australia and Amsterdam before moving to Los Angeles in 1984.

She quickly became a respected make-up artist. She worked for famous fashion brands like Chanel and Gaultier. Her reputation grew so much that people started asking her father if he was Joanne Gair's father!

Working with Music Stars

Joanne Gair's early work in the music world included creating looks for album covers and music videos. She worked with big names like David Lee Roth, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, and Mick Jagger. One of her first big successes was doing the make-up for David Lee Roth's 1986 album cover, Eat 'Em and Smile.

These experiences led her to work with Madonna. She did the make-up for Madonna's music videos "Express Yourself" and "Vogue". She also worked on videos for Aerosmith and Nine Inch Nails. She even won awards for her work on Madonna's song "Frozen". Another famous musician she worked with is Gwen Stefani. Stefani won an award for "Most Stylish Video" in 1999 for the No Doubt song "New", thanks to Gair's work.

From Make-up to Body Art

Over time, Joanne Gair started doing more than just make-up. She began body painting to show her own artistic ideas. In 1991, she was the make-up artist for a famous Vanity Fair photo of Demi Moore. The photo, called More Demi Moore, showed Moore when she was pregnant.

Joanne Gair is known as a Trompe-l'œil body painter. This means she creates art that tricks the eye. Sometimes, she simply calls herself an "illusionist." She also sees herself as an "image-maker" because she helps change how people see others.

She was inspired to specialize in body painting by the traditional face art of the Māori people in her home country of New Zealand. Other inspirations came from glam rockers, heavy metal rockers, Japanese geishas, Native American Indians, and Indian mehndi art. She started drawing on people with Sharpies in 1977.

Her work became very popular after the 1992 Vanity Fair cover with Demi Moore. She has worked with many top photographers, directors, supermodels, and celebrities. These include Madonna, Cindy Crawford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kim Basinger, Christina Aguilera, and Gwyneth Paltrow. She has also been featured in major magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Amazing Body Art for Sports Illustrated

Joanne Gair's body paintings have been a big part of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for many years.

Early Swimsuit Issues

In her first year with the Swimsuit Issue (1999), she painted models like Rebecca Romijn and Heidi Klum. She made them look like they were wearing different kinds of beachwear. These first Sports Illustrated body paintings were done on Richard Branson's Necker Island. Some of these pictures even appeared in a 2001 Sports Illustrated calendar. Heidi Klum's tie-dyed swimsuit body painting even made the cover of the German edition of the magazine!

In 2001, the Swimsuit Issue had a "goddess" theme. Joanne Gair helped with this by painting models to look like statues of goddesses. For example, she painted Heidi Klum as Athena and Veronika Vařeková as Aphrodite.

In 2003, she painted a world map with seven continents on Rachel Hunter, who is also from New Zealand. She made sure to put Australia and New Zealand "down under" on the map! In the 2004 issue, she painted models like Jessica White and Petra Nemcova. Some of these paintings mixed body paint with real bathing suit parts.

Later Swimsuit Issues

For the 2005 issue, she painted models in athletic team outfits. In 2006, she painted many different bathing suits on Heidi Klum. One of these was on the cover of the German Sports Illustrated again. This was the ninth time Gair and Klum worked together!

In the 2007 issue, which had a music theme, Joanne Gair painted rock and roll-themed tee shirts and bottoms on models. For the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, she painted bathing suits on models like Quiana Grant and Marisa Miller. It took about thirteen hours to paint each model!

Covers and Photography

While no body painting has been the only main image on the Swimsuit Issue cover, some have appeared as smaller pictures. In 2005, Jessica White was shown on the cover in a Miami Dolphins jersey body painting by Gair. In 2016, one of the three separate covers featured Ronda Rousey in a Gair-painted one-piece bathing suit. This was the first time a body paint image was on a main Swimsuit cover.

From 2005 to 2007, Joanne Gair actually took the photographs of her body paintings herself for the magazine.

Books by Joanne Gair

Joanne Gair has written several books about her amazing body painting art.

Her first book is called Paint A 'Licious. In this book, she was not only the painter but also the photographer and the person who planned all the scenes. The book is about helping people make their fantasies come true. For example, one picture shows an older woman in a pink tutu doing the splits. Another shows an overweight woman who looks 30 pounds slimmer because of the body paint. The book shows how you can get "washboard abs" or an "hourglass figure" just by sitting still for a few hours while being painted!

Her second book, Body Painting, has seventy-five of her artworks. It includes pictures taken by famous photographers like Annie Leibovitz and Herb Ritts. This book features many works from her art show at the Auckland Museum. It also includes some of her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue images. The book even has photos of former model and French First Lady, Carla Bruni. Many pictures of Heidi Klum and Demi Moore are also in the book, including alternate photos from the famous 1992 Demi's Birthday Suit shoot. A photo from her "Disappearing Model" work, seen on Ripley's Believe It or Not?, is also included.

Sports Illustrated also released a book in 2007 called Sports Illustrated: In the Paint. This book is all about Joanne Gair's body painting collection from the SI Swimsuit Issue. It includes all the body paintings she has done for the magazine since 1999. The book also has behind-the-scenes images that were not in the magazine.

Television Appearances

Disappearing Model, 2000, is one of Gair's most famous works.

While many people know Joanne Gair for Demi's Birthday Suit, art fans often think her most famous work is Disappearing Model. This artwork was shown on Ripley's Believe it or Not!. In this amazing trompe l'oeil body painting, the model's face and body almost completely blend into the colorful flowers of the wallpaper behind her. It's very hard to tell where the model ends and the background begins!

Another early and memorable body painting she did was a moko (a traditional Māori face tattoo) on a female fashion model. This was special because moko designs were traditionally for men.

Joanne Gair also appeared on Germany's Next Topmodel. She painted and photographed the final four contestants in leopard prints. She worked for six to seven hours with each model. The paintings covered their shoulders, legs, and stomachs. The work was so good that no contestants were eliminated in that episode!

Her Artistic Style

Joanne Gair has developed a unique style as a body painter. A typical job takes her and her team about eight hours to complete. Some bigger projects can even take twice that long! She is always very prepared for her jobs.

Interestingly, she usually doesn't sketch her work on paper beforehand. She says she has only had to do that twice in over twenty years of body painting! If she needs to test something out, she often uses her own arm or hand.

In recent years, Joanne Gair has also become a professional photographer. She took the pictures for her book Paint A 'Licious. She has also been the photographer for some of her Sports Illustrated work, like the photos of Heidi Klum in 2006.

Family Life

Joanne Gair is from Takapuna in the North Island of New Zealand. She now lives in both Los Angeles and New York City. Her father is Hon. George Gair, who was a well-known politician in New Zealand. He was a Member of the Parliament of New Zealand for many years and later the Mayor of North Shore City.

Her mother is Fay Gair. Joanne also has an older sister named Linda Gair, who has helped her as a model and painting assistant for some of her artworks, including the cover of her first book. She also has an older brother named Warwick.

See also

In Spanish: Joanne Gair para niños