Lorna Mills

Biography

Lorna Mills is a Canadian net.art and new media artist known for her digital animations, videos, and GIF-based work, active in solo and group exhibitions internationally since the early 1990s. Classically trained in traditional arts, Mills taught herself programming and moving-image techniques, eventually becoming one of the pioneering figures of early internet-based art and the broader net.art movement. Her practice spans digital animation, video, restrained offline installation, and richly layered GIF collage, often combining found imagery, glitch aesthetics, and vibrant, chaotic color to create dense, maximalist compositions that critique and celebrate internet visual culture simultaneously. Mills has exhibited her work extensively both in Canada and internationally, with pieces held in major collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Thoma Foundation, the Sandor Collection, the Museum of the Moving Image, EQ Bank, and RBC. She has also been an active curator and organizer within the net.art community, helping to bring together generations of digital artists through group shows and screenings. Her long career bridges the earliest days of browser-based art through the rise of blockchain and NFT platforms, and she continues to be recognized as an influential figure whose GIF-driven aesthetic helped define a distinct visual language for internet-native art. Mills remains an active exhibiting artist, continuing to push her signature maximalist, chaotic style across new digital platforms and formats.