Mitch Cairns is an artist whose mostly figurative painting practice balances a quickness and playfulness of improvised pictorial concepts with an unparalleled ability with his oil paint medium. The surprising pairing of wit and discipline provides paint outcomes that are at once thin and flat but extraordinarily complex and subtle. For his subject matter, Cairns recounts a poetics of domestic/familial life where love, banality, self-reflection, eroticism, melancholy, anxiety provide ample image-ideas. On top of this foundation of the everyday, he builds homages to artist and literary heroes. Cairns often uses text as material for his work indebted to concrete poetry. Drawing, printmaking and collage are the domain of his extensive production on paper. Recent works in bronze and mirror emphasise the object based aspect of his practice.

In 2026, the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, and NAS Gallery, Sydney, are partnering in the presentation of Mitch Cairns: Artist's Mouth, a survey of 20 years of Cairns' practice with loans of over 40 works from institutional and private collections. Curated by Lucy Latella and Robert Leonard, the exhibition will be accompanied by a significant monograph.

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). Cairns curated Primavera: Young Australian Artists in 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Cairns has produced a number of artist books and serial 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).