All of Cairns's figures have a thin, waiflike, or wraithlike, aspect that connects them to both of the aforementioned works of Donatello rather than to the tradition of heroic suffering of, say, Michelangelo's Slaves . There are many suggestions of shrouds, mummies' wrappings, life and death masks, and other accoutrements of the body preserved, memorialized, and otherwise nonsculpturally observed. Eve as Death , a timeless figure in a traditional contrapposto, perched on a pile of skulls, illustrates another aspect of Cairns's longstanding shapeshifting approach to sculpture. In short, this device is a reminder that things cannot be taken for granted in sculpture, that sculpture is a process of making decisions about forms and their eventual meaning. In an earlier sculpture, Esmeralda , which Cairns has recently changed by placing it on a pile of plaster bricks, this process is spelled out more deliberately.
Geometric forms echoing crucifixes draw attention to the body as a formal problem.
In Cairns's recent sculpture, such references to geometry are more likely to take the form of a carried stick, a tree trunk, or an outstretched arm - formal touches with narrative or expressive significance. The Rack of Heads is in many ways the apotheosis of Cairns's new style. They are placed in rows but in willy-nilly fashion. They comprise a sort of rogue's gallery of facial and head types - a panorama of human expression, perhaps deriving its unleashed variety from the very fact that this same sculptor was formerly more interested in extracting a pure essence of headness from this same form. Most of the heads are upright, some lean or lie on their sides.