Vivienne Binns facts for kids

Vivienne Joyce Binns OAM (born 6 December 1940 – died 1 August 2026) was an important Australian artist. She was known for her unique paintings and her work in helping other women artists. Vivienne also strongly supported community arts, which means making art accessible to everyone.

Her Early Life and Art School

Vivienne Binns was born in Wyong, New South Wales, Australia, on 6 December 1940. She was the youngest of five children. Her father, Norman, was in the army for five years, serving in the Middle East and Papua New Guinea. During this time, Vivienne, her mother Joyce, and her siblings lived in Young, New South Wales.

After the war ended in 1945, the Binns family moved to Sydney. Vivienne grew up there, first in Willoughby and then in Wollstonecraft.

From 1953, Vivienne attended North Sydney Girls High School. She later studied art at the National Art School from 1958 to 1962. After graduating, Vivienne stayed at the school. She became a teacher in the drawing department. She was always exploring new ideas in art, like Dadaism, which challenged traditional ways of thinking.

A Career of Creativity and Community

Vivienne Binns held her first solo art show in 1967. It was called Vivienne Binns: Paintings and Constructions and took place at Watters Gallery in Sydney. Her early work was very bold and challenged many traditional ideas about art. Some critics found her art shocking and very different from what they were used to seeing.

After this first exhibition, Vivienne decided to take a break from painting. She became very involved in community arts. This meant working to bring art to more people, not just those who visited galleries.

Challenging Art and Community Focus

In 1973, Vivienne worked as a field officer for the Community Arts Program. This was a program by the Australia Council for the Arts. She traveled to different parts of Australia to find out what people needed and how art could help. She did a lot to encourage and promote art in communities. She also started working with materials like vitreous enamel. These were often seen as "crafts" rather than fine art.

In 1975, Vivienne met Lucy Lippard, an art critic from the United States who supported women artists. They became friends. Vivienne later visited New York City and connected with other artists who were part of the women's art movement there.

From 1979, Vivienne began working as an artist-in-residence. She worked at the University of New South Wales. She then had similar placements in many places across New South Wales from 1980 to 1988.

Exploring New Cultures and Ideas

In the late 1980s, Vivienne taught painting and drawing at the University of Sydney Art Workshop. In 1994, she taught at Charles Sturt University in Albury. She then moved to Canberra. There, she became a lecturer at the Canberra School of Art. This school later joined with the Australian National University.

In 1990, Vivienne traveled to central Australia. She learned about the creation stories, art, and culture from Pitjantjara women. Also in 1990, she received an Australian Arts Creative Fellowship. This award allowed her to research the cultural links between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region for three years.

In 1991, Vivienne spent time in Tokyo on an Australia Council residency. She also attended three South Pacific Festivals of the Arts. These were in Rarotonga (1992), Western Samoa (1996), and Noumea (2000). These experiences inspired a lot of her artwork. She included references to Captain James Cook and the artists who traveled with him. She also used patterns from tapa cloth, which is a traditional bark cloth from the Pacific.

Honoring "Unknown Artists"

In 1995, Vivienne started a large art series called In Memory of the Unknown Artist. This project honored the creative efforts of people not usually seen as "artists." This included designers of fabric, linoleum, carpet, and bathroom tiles. It also celebrated housewives, traditional craftspeople, street artists, and hobby artists. She continued to create works in this series throughout the 2000s.

In 2000, she lived in the Australia Council Studio in London. In 2001, she visited Europe again with help from a research grant.

In 2002, Vivienne traveled to the Kimberleys in Australia. Afterward, her art included images of that landscape. Sometimes these were combined with Cook-related images and patterned surfaces. In 2003, she worked with Geoff Newton and Derek O'Connor on a series of paintings.

Vivienne retired from teaching in 2012. Up until her later years, she continued to work and paint in her studio. She sometimes worked at a slower pace.

A major exhibition of her work opened in 2022. It was called Vivienne Binns: On and through the Surface. It showed at MUMA (Monash University Museum of Art) and then at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney. The exhibition featured over 100 works. These included prints, sculptures, drawings, and her earliest paintings.

Death

Vivienne Binns passed away in Canberra on 1 August 2026, at the age of 85.

Vivienne Binns' Art Style

Vivienne Binns worked with many different art forms. These included painting, printmaking, performance art, sculpture, and drawing. Her wide range of artistic work made her highly respected. She was admired by artists in Australia and around the world. Especially by those who supported women's rights in art.

Painting and Exploring Big Ideas

Vivienne Binns became well-known for her many paintings. Her first solo exhibition in 1967 was a very important moment. It helped start the development of art that explored women's experiences in Australia. This show was groundbreaking. It challenged traditional ideas and opened new paths for artists.

Through many years of trying new things with color and shapes, Vivienne explored big ideas in her paintings. She looked at topics like women's rights and how different cultures interact. She used abstraction in her art. This was a way to share complex ideas and make them understandable to more people.

The Women's Art Movement

Vivienne Binns was a leader in creating The Women's Art Movement (WAM) in Sydney. She worked with other artists who supported women's rights. These included Barbara Hall, Frances Phoenix, Beverly Garlick, Jude Adams, and Toni Robertson.

The movement started in 1973. It was inspired by an essay called "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" WAM wanted to fight against unfair treatment and sexism in the art world. They did this through various actions and exhibitions. Vivienne was a founding member in 1974. WAM also worked hard to record and document the artwork of women. They did this by creating the Women's Art Register.

Vivienne's art was often inspired by the ideas of women's rights. She once said:

...as a feminist I became aware that the heritage of women was not readily available to us, was not obviously recorded and was certainly not taught in the schools.

This means she felt it was important to make sure women's history and art were remembered and taught.

Art for Everyone: Community Projects

Vivienne Binns played a big role in developing community arts in Australia. She believed art should be for everyone.

The Artsmobile Adventure

In 1972, she worked with Mike Morris and Tim Burns on The Artsmobile. This was a traveling art project. It brought Dada and Surrealist-style performances to towns along the north-east coast of New South Wales. The Artsmobile offered many art activities. It visited schools, senior centers, and public parks.

Sharing "Mothers' Memories"

Vivienne continued her interest in community arts. In 1978, she created Mothers' Memories, Others' Memories. This project started during her time as an artist-in-residence at the University of New South Wales. She later expanded it to Blacktown. There, she worked with Patricia Parker from the Blacktown City Council.

Mothers' Memories, Others' Memories focused on the lives of women. It explored how they expressed themselves at home. Participants shared stories about craft and needlework skills. These skills were often taught by their mothers and other family members. The final artwork was a series of postcards. They were displayed on a postcard rack. This project continued until 1981.

"Full Flight" Across New South Wales

In 1983, Vivienne started another big community art project called Full Flight. She lived in a caravan for two years. She traveled through the Central West region of New South Wales. She stayed in each town for two to four months. During this time, she led workshops, painted murals, and shared skills. This project celebrated "the creativity of ordinary people."

Vivienne wanted to make the art world open to everyone. She believed that creative expression is a natural part of being human. She felt that stopping this expression was a form of "social control." She said:

I am primarily interested in breaking down the distinctions between the art of artists and art institutions on one hand, and the art expression of people in general on the other...The approach I used was an attempt to take a positive step towards undermining the Australian cultural cringe and the oppressive effect of values pertaining to separate, aloof and elite art forms.

She wanted to show that art isn't just for a select few.

The Ongoing "Tower of Babel"

In 1989, Vivienne began another community art project. It was called The Tower of Babel and started at the Watters Gallery. It began with 50 small dioramas. These were created by Vivienne, her friends, mentors, students, and other artists. Some of these artists included Irene Maher, Mike Brown, Ruth Waller, Bonita Ely, and Eugene Carchesio. This project is still growing. In 2022, it included 90 boxes.

In 1991, Vivienne was the main editor for a book. It was called Community and the Arts: History, Theory, Practice. This book was a guide for people working in community arts.

Awards and Recognition

The Australia Council recognized Vivienne Binns as a pioneering artist. They said she was "one of the first artists in Australia to critically engage with feminism." This means she was one of the first to deeply explore ideas about women's rights in Australian art. She also helped start conversations between Australian art and international movements for women's rights.

In 1983, Vivienne received an Order of Australia Medal. This was for her important contributions to art and craft. She also won the Ros Bower Memorial Award in 1985. This award recognized her vision in community arts.

In 1990, she received an Australian Arts Creative Fellowship. This award funded her three-year research project. It focused on the cultural connections between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Her work was chosen for important art prizes. These included the John McCaughey Memorial Prize (2008) and the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award (2009) at the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 2021, Binns received an Australia Council Award for Visual Arts.

Exhibitions of Her Work

Vivienne Binns' art was shown in many exhibitions over more than fifty years.

Solo Shows

• 1967 Paintings and Constructions, Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1971 Funky Enamel Ashtrays, Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1973 Enamel Panels, University of Tasmania, Hobart and Raffins Gallery, Orange, New South Wales
• 1985 Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1990 Drawings of God, Tower of Babel, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane
• 1992 Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
• 1994 Surfacing in the Pacific, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane
• 1995 Pacific Strands, Australian Girls' Own Gallery (aGOG), Canberra
• 1996 Slicing History in the Pacific, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane
• 1996 In Memory of the Unknown Artist and Others, Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1999 PATTERNING: In Memory of Unknown Artists, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
• 1999 TRANSLATIONS: Remembering Unknown Artists, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane
• 1999 Rocks and Relics: Cook to Lake Cargelligo, The Cube, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra
• 2004 Vivienne Binns: Twenty First Century Paintings, curated by Merryn Gates, The Cross Art Projects, Sydney
• 2005 Some New, Some Old, Some Collaborations, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
• 2006–8 Vivienne Binns, touring exhibition curated by Merryn Gates, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; The Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra; Penrith Regional Gallery, Penrith, NSW; and Bathurst Regional Gallery, Bathurst, NSW
• 2008 Everything New is Old Again, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
• 2012 Vivienne Binns, Art and Life (mini –Survey), curated by Penny Peckham, La Trobe University Museum of Art, Melbourne
• 2018 It is what it is what it is, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
• 2022 Vivienne Binns: On and through the Surface, MUMA, Melbourne, then Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

Group Shows

• 1971 Woom, environmental lightshow with Roger Foley (Ellis D Fogg), Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1972 The Jo Bonomo Story - A Show of Strength, a group happening, Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1978 An exhibition of work by homosexual and lesbian artists, Watters Gallery, Sydney
• 1980 Mothers' Memories, Others' Memories, Blacktown artist in community and participation project, Watters Gallery, Sydney; Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
• 1981 Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• 1981-83 Full-Flight, artist-in-community in the central western region of NSW
• 1982 Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• 1987 Contemporary Art in Australia A Review, Museum of Contemporary Art, South Brisbane
• 1991 Frames of Reference: Aspects of Feminism and Art, Pier 4/5, Sydney
• 1996 Women Hold Up Half the Sky: The Orientation of Art in the Post-War Pacific, MUMA, Melbourne
• 1997 I had a Dream: Australian Art in the 1960s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• 1998 Patterning: Layers of Meaning in Contemporary Art, curated by Merryn Gates, touring to Canberra; Bandung, Jakarta, Ubud, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Lahore, Pakistan; and Manila, Philippines
• 2000 On the Brink: Abstraction in the 90’s, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
• 2007 Cross Currents: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
• 2012 Sixties Explosion, Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2014 Binns + Valamanesh, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney
• 2015 Pop to Popism, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• 2017–18 Unfinished Business: Perspectives on Art & Feminism, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne

Where to See Her Art

Vivienne Binns' artwork is held in many private collections. It is also part of major public collections, including:

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
• Australian National University, Canberra
• BHP, Melbourne
• Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra
• Griffith University Art Collection, Queensland
• Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
• Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
• Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, New South Wales
• Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
• Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, Queensland
• Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• University Art Gallery, Queensland University, Brisbane
• University of Western Australia, Cruthers Collection of Women's Art
• Wesfarmers, Perth