Painter and draughtsman, born in Maybole, Ayrshire, educated at Carrick Academy. Had a first solo show at Maclauren Art Gallery in Ayr in 1977, then went on to exhibit at John Moores Exhibition in Liverpool and at Walker Art Gallery there. This was followed by a Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition. Around that time Cockburn began writing poetry and painting the area where he had lived as a young boy, the old mining village of Kerse, near Patna, trying to recapture what life was like when the Houldsworth Mine was operating. He began showing at the New Solen Gallery with John Bratby and Shore Gallery, Edinburgh, the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock and McKechnie Institute, Girvan, and by 1991 regularly in top Glasgow galleries, such as Cyril Gerber Fine Art, the Compass and Cormund Galleries and T & R Annan and Sons.