Joanne Gair

Joanne Gair (born c. 1958), nicknamed Kiwi Jo (alternatively Kiwi Joe), is a New Zealand-born and -raised make-up artist and body painter whose body paintings have been featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue from 1999 to 2017.

In 1977, she began teaching dance at a New Zealand primary school.

She moved from New Zealand at the age of 21 and had a variety of stops on her way to Los Angeles.

She began using Sharpies to draw on people in 1977.

Most of the time was spent in Australia and Amsterdam, until she ventured to Los Angeles at the time of the 1984 Summer Olympics, after five years away from home.

With the help of the Cloutier Agency she obtained a work permit.

She then approached the Chanel and Gaultier beauty salons to offer her already well-respected make-up artist services.

They both accepted her and she further solidified her reputation to the point where instead of being asked if she was George Gair's daughter it was more common for her father to be asked if he was Joanne Gair's father.

Her early work in the music industry included album cover and music video work for David Lee Roth, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, and Mick Jagger.

One of her early successes was being employed to do Roth's 1986 Eat 'Em and Smile album cover.

These experiences led to work with Madonna, which started with music videos for "Express Yourself" and "Vogue".

She has also done work on music videos for Aerosmith and Nine Inch Nails.

In August 1991, Demi Moore caused international artistic commotion by appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair seven months pregnant with her daughter Scout LaRue in the photo More Demi Moore, with Gair as the make-up artist and Annie Leibovitz as the photographer.

Exactly one year later, she returned to the cover of the same magazine nude as a product of Gair and Leibovitz in a nearly equally as shocking body painting, Demi's Birthday Suit.

Gair was the primary body painter of this art and the magazine cover art propelled Gair to fame.

Fifteen years later, it continues to be considered the most well-known example of modern body painting.

She is considered the world's leading trompe-l'œil body painter and make-up artist, and she became famous with a Vanity Fair Demi's Birthday Suit cover of Demi Moore in a body painting in 1992.

Her Disappearing Model was featured on the highest-rated episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not. She is the daughter of George Gair.

In addition to achieving pop culture prominence and respect in the fashion and art worlds starting with her body painting of Demi Moore, she is a make-up artist in the rock and roll world who has helped several of her music clients win fashion and style awards.

She is also considered a fashion and art trendsetter, and for a long time she was associated with Madonna.

The 1992 cover that entailed a thirteen-hour sitting for Gair and her team of make-up artists was a commemoration of the August 1991 photo.

The shooting was storied because photographer Leibovitz could not decide where to shoot and reserved two mobile homes, four hotel rooms and five houses.

The pop culture attention given to Gair and her body painting led Absolut Vodka to consider an Absolut Gair body painting promotion in 1993.

Her work on the 1997 Nine Inch Nails video for "The Perfect Drug" won her the makeup portion of the best hair/makeup in a music video at the Music Video Production Awards.

She had also won awards for Madonna's Frozen.

In 1997, Gair also teamed with Rebecca Romijn and Dennis Rodman for a controversial bodypainting cover on GQ with Rodman's bodypainted hands on Romijn's breasts.

The cover read "Dennis Rodman tries to get a grip on life, fame and career, but not on Rebecca Romijn."

Home February 1997 edition subscribers received a total of 425,000 copies of the version with Gair's art, while 300,000 copies went to news stands with a more chaste version of the cover.

Some vendors such as Wal-Mart refused to stock that edition.

Gair is considered a Trompe-l'œil body painter, but at times she describes herself more generally and colloquially as an illusionist.

She also refers to herself and others refer to her as an image-maker for her contributions to people's perceptions of others.

She was originally inspired to specialise in body painting by facial skin adornment of the indigenous Māori people of her native New Zealand.

However, the glam rockers and heavy metal rockers as well as white-face geishas, Native American Indians and Indian mehndi all contributed to her inspiration.

Among the other notable musicians she has worked with is Gwen Stefani, who won Most Stylish Video at the 1999 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards working with Gair on the video for No Doubt's song "New".

Gair also worked on ad campaigns and for photo features in efforts to exhibit the artistic visions of others.

Eventually she expanded beyond make-up artistry to body painting to express her own artistic vision.

In 2001, she had her first retrospective and in 2005, she published her first book on body painting.

At the peak of her pop culture fame after the Vanity Fair cover, she was seriously considered for an Absolut Vodka Absolute Gair ad campaign.

She has done magazine editorial work, and in 2005, she became a photographer of her own body paintings in both books and magazines.

Gair, who is New Zealand-born and was raised in Auckland, lives in the United States and is based in Los Angeles.