Christine and Jennifer Binnie laugh a lot. Sometimes it’s a giggle, more often it’s a big, joyous hoot. It’s unusual – and refreshing – to meet artists that don’t take themselves 100 per cent seriously. But then they never were ones for fitting in. Even in the heady 1980s, when the sisters shared squats and partied with an unconventional crowd including Boy George and Marilyn, they were slight oddities, cavorting “naked and red-faced” as anarchic art collective the Neo-Naturists while their peers postured in hip London nightclubs.
“The performance artists we’d seen didn’t smile,” says Christine, of forming the group along with fellow artist Wilma Johnson. “They were very white with tiny bosoms and bobs. We’re not like that. And if being serious is performance art then we felt having a laugh must be performance art too.” art too.”
We’re squinting against the sun on the balcony of Eastbourne’s Towner gallery, where the sisters are about to open a new exhibition – works they have chosen from the archives paired with new work by themselves. Jennifer, the younger of the two, has decorated the gallery walls with bold, colour-saturated images inspired by “the Downs, the woods, and human and animal bodies” while Christine tells me about a traditional bent wood bender they have installed and filled with objects she has made – a nod to her long-term involvement in East Sussex Archeology and Museums Partnership, which has encouraged her to “weave ancient ideas and techniques into my work”. There will be no nudity, however. Now in their 60s, the sisters have less patience for shivering their way through a full body paint and besides, they know too many people locally. It would be awkward.
Denne historien er fra November 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
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Denne historien er fra November 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
