The Inspiration Behind Artist Lindy Lee's Sculptures

The Brisbane-born artist draws inspiration from burning – both physical and metaphorical – to meld her sculptures.

Lindy Lee was in snowbound Beijing for an artists’ residency in 2009 when she felt a compulsion to work with fire. She bought a soldering iron and started to burn endless holes in long rolls of paper. At the same time she was listening to podcasts about Buddhism and ideas of burning away self-delusion.

“It was very, very cold and I literally went into solitary confinement and started to burn stuff,” she says of that pivotal moment in her career.

Up until that point, Lee had explored the complexities of her identity as a Chinese-Australian growing up in Brisbane (Meanjin) through painting. The paper-burning epiphany opened up a new urge to work with metal and sculptural forms. Lee moved on to perforating burnished metal and raw steel in raindrop patterns and concentric circles. She charred logs of wood and flung molten bronze in organic patterns, the chaos always giving way to universal harmony and the oneness of all things. “I’m invoking the dark and unknown aspects of our existence because I can’t really know what shape will come out.”

In the past decade, Lee has been in demand in Australia and internationally for public artworks. In 2021, she received the largest-ever commission from the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra for the Ouroboros (snake eating its tail) sculpture, which will cost $14 million and is due to be completed this year.

A resident of NSW’s Northern Rivers region, Lee balances the intensity of collaborating on colossal artworks with a retreat into solitude. She rises early to walk her beloved Scottish terriers, swim laps, meditate and draw.

“It takes me many weeks just to distil an idea. The simpler the form, the more perfect it has to be.”

Exhibited at: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.

Breakthrough moment: In 1977, Lee travelled overseas and was inspired by Italian art. In the ’80s, she was accepted to study at the Chelsea School of Art in London.

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