Vale Vivienne Binns, born Wyong NSW, December 6, 1940; died Canberra, August 1, 2026.

One of Australia’s most admired and influential artists, Vivienne Binns, has died in Canberra aged 85.

Born in Wyong, New South Wales, on December 6, 1940, Binns became a pioneering figure in Australian art whose career spanned more than six decades. Celebrated as an artist, writer, teacher and mentor, she was remembered at her funeral in Mitchell on august 17  Canberra as a profound thinker, renowned for her “Socratic questioning” and her deep reflections on both the nature of art and what it means to be human.

Loved by many for her warm and accessible personality, Binns was also recognised as an outspoken leader in feminist and community-based art. Her contribution to Australian culture was acknowledged in 1983 when she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the arts.

After studying at East Sydney Technical College between 1958 and 1962 under influential teachers including Dorothy Thornhill, John Olsen, Godfrey Miller and John Passmore, Binns embarked on a career that began in painting but soon expanded into printmaking, performance, sculpture, drawing, installation and collaborative projects.

Her first solo exhibition at Watters Gallery in Sydney in 1967 provoked outrage because of its sexually explicit imagery. Far from retreating, Binns embraced the debate. Years later she recalled being “amazed” by the reaction. “I thought they were hilarious,” she said. “I felt I knew the work better than anyone and could withstand whatever was said.” Several works from that exhibition were later acquired by the National Gallery of Australia.

The experience helped shape a practice that consistently challenged accepted ideas about art and society. During the 1970s and 1980s, Binns became a leading force in the development of community arts practice in Australia, working alongside communities in both regional and urban settings. She helped establish the Sydney chapter of the Women’s Art Movement in 1974 and participated in groundbreaking exhibitions that expanded representation for women and LGBTQ+ artists.

Among her most significant works was Mothers’ Memories, Others’ Memories, acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 1981. Developed in collaboration with women from the University of New South Wales and Blacktown, the project recorded matrilineal histories at a time when women’s experiences were rarely documented or valued. Another major collaborative work, Tower of Babel, begun in 1989, invited participants to fill individual boxes in any way they chose, creating a collective portrait of diverse visual languages and lived experiences.

Although she moved away from conventional painting for some years, Binns returned to the medium in the 1980s, using it alongside performance, installation, screen-printing, drawing, light works and vitreous enamel. Throughout her career she resisted artistic boundaries, famously observing: “I went in many directions as a purposeful way to understand art as a human activity rather than something that only artists do.”

Her achievements were widely recognised. She received the Ros Bower Award for Community Arts Advocacy in 1986, an Australian Artists Creative Fellowship in 1990 and, in 2021, the Australia Council Award for Visual Arts. In 2022, her remarkable career was celebrated in the major retrospective On and Through the Surface, presented by Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney.

Binns also made an enduring contribution as an educator, teaching painting, drawing and art theory at the University of Sydney, Charles Sturt University and the Australian National University. Beyond the classroom, she served on peer assessment panels, contributed to publications, participated in advocacy initiatives and generously mentored generations of younger artists.

In 2020, she was featured in the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, which brought renewed attention to the achievements of women artists across the nation.

Vivienne Binns died in Canberra on August 1, 2026. She was predeceased by her parents, Joyce and Norman Binns, and her siblings Peter, Beverley, Norman and Ian. She is survived by nieces, nephews, extended family members and a wide community of friends, colleagues and artists.

–HELEN MUSA

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