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Lindy Lee: Ouroboros

Early 2024

A digital rendering of the inside of a large sculpture, from the perspective os someone standing inside, looking outwards

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee


“The Ouroboros will become a beacon. Daytime or nighttime, it's going to pulse with light and energy.”

Lindy Lee

Reaching for the stars, Australian artist Lindy Lee will create her first immersive public sculpture, Ouroboros.

With a practice spanning more than four decades, Brisbane-born Lee uses her work to explore her Chinese ancestry through Taoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism – philosophies that see humanity and nature as inextricably linked.

Ouroboros is based on the ancient image of a snake eating its own tail, seen across culture and millennia, it is the symbol of eternal return, of cycles of birth and death, and renewal. Located at the entrance of the National Gallery, people will be able enter the ‘mouth’ of the sculpture and walk into the curved space to experience darkness that is illuminated by light beams emanating from the hundreds of perforations on its surface.

During the day its highly polished mirror surface will reflect the imagery of the floating world, the transience of passers-by, cars, birds in flight, and passing clouds. At night the Ouroboros will be lit internally, returning its light to the world.

Lindy Lee: Ouroboros has been commissioned in celebration of the National Gallery’s upcoming 40th birthday and is due to be completed in early 2024.

Lindy Lee: Ouroboros

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Lindy Lee: Ouroboros

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A screenshot from a video of artist Lindy Lee reaching out and touching the holed surface of one of her large silver sculptures
A digital rendering of a large sculpture sitting in the landscape outside the national gallery building

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee

A digital rendering of a large sculpture sitting in the landscape outside the national gallery building

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee

A digital rendering if a large outdoor sculpture at night time. Light from inside the sculpture are glowing like stars

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee

A digital rendering of the inside of a large sculpture, from the perspective os someone standing inside, looking outwards

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee

A digital rendering of the inside of a large sculpture, from the perspective os someone standing inside, looking outwards

Lindy Lee, Ouroboros, 2024, (artist's interpretation), courtesy the artist, UAP and Sullivan+Strumpf, © Lindy Lee

Artist Lindy Lee sitting outdoors with a maquette of her sculpture Ouroboros

Artist Lindy Lee with a maquette of Ouroboros, 2021, courtesy the artist, photo by Zoe Wesolowski-Fisher

More on Lindy Lee


  • Story

    Lindy Lee & Nell

    Two women are smiling for a photo together. One is sitting on a rock and the other is cross legged on the ground. They are in a Chinese garden within a city

    Mentoring and Buddhism have played a large part in the friendship between artists Lindy Lee and Nell, writes Georgina Safe.

  • Lindy Lee in Know My Name

    Black and white photo of artist Lindy Lee working on a maquette of her sculpture Ouroboros in her studio
  • Video

    Lindy Lee 'The tyranny and liberation of distance'

    Published 15 March 2019

    Artist Lindy Lee discusses her work displayed in Infinite Conversations: Asian-Australian Artistic Exchange at the National Gallery in 2018.

    01:31

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