Vale Vivienne Binns

Vale Vivienne Binns 1940 – 30.7.2026

Vale artist, lecturer, feminist, and friend Viv Binns, who passed away late last week in Canberra.

A prominent artist amongst Sydney’s art scene from the 1960s onwards, Viv’s wildly diverse art practice was spurred by her groundbreaking energy and commitment to collaboration, community building, and feminist politics. Her brave and formidable spirit found enduring purpose in art schools throughout her career. Viv joined the ANU School of Art in the 1990s first as a sessional lecturer in Sculpture before settling permanently in Canberra to lead Foundation Studies and teach in the Painting department, where she mentored and inspired generations of ANU graduates until her retirement in 2012.

In 2008, the major touring survey exhibition of her work, curated by Merryn Gates, was exhibited at the Drill Hall Gallery, ANU. A vital and deeply valued member of the ANU and local art community, Viv was respected nationally and internationally and is regarded by many as one of Australia’s leading feminist artists. Her iconoclastic, no-holds-barred approach to life and art blazed a trail across the Australian cultural landscape, setting a powerful example for generations of artist-rebels who follow in her wake.

Binn’s assemblage-painting Lino, Canberra, tile formation and orange (2001), in the ANU Art Collection, is a mosaic of discarded linoleum flooring collected from condemned Canberra houses. Part of the In memory of the unknown artist series in which Binns incorporates or reproduces designs by unknown creators, the work highlights and celebrates the creativity present in the material of everyday lives.

“My life as an artist has been concerned with questions such as: What is this thing called art and what does it mean for humans? . . . Why are there things made by humans which are called ‘art’ by some and something else by others?”

In Lino, Canberra the decorative fragments of linoleum jostle together in a harmonious composition bracketed by vertical ends of painted timber. Each tile-like piece fits neatly into place without the need for geometric uniformity, celebrating the diversity of a community made stronger through difference. Edges waver between the roughly cut sections of linoleum, pressing close, bending apart in a restless dance across the surface. Lino, Canberra is alive with an incessant quiver reminiscent of the boundless energy that animated the artist who created it.