2024 Annual Lecture: Lindy Lee

- It's an incredible thing to work with something like gold, which has such a deep and rich history with human civilization. Throughout so many civilizations and being the cause of so much joy and heartbreak. And when you are working with such a material, you can't help but feel connected to the entire history of the human species in a way. And all of our desires and all of our disappointments and all of our great celebrations. So, gold means all of that.

- Good evening and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the James Fairfax Theatre for the 2024 Annual Lecture featuring Dr. Lindy Lee. Today's been a really proud moment for the National Gallery and to commence our second part of such a big day for us, it's my great pleasure to introduce a great friend of the National Gallery, a great friend of this country, Aunty Jude Barlow. Aunty Jude, can I welcome you to the lectern?

- Thanks, Nick. Yuma, which is hello in Ngunnawal, so please use it when you're on Ngunnawal country to say hello, hi, and of course, good day. It is an honour to be here once again with my dear friends at the gallery. And as I've said many times before, this place is a special place for me and my family. And now, it's made even more special by two beautiful ladies, "Ouroboros" and my sister, Lindy Lee. As I said today and yesterday, these last 12 months or so have been perhaps the greatest in my life, excluding, of course, the birth of my two beautiful girls, Alinta and Lucy, and my long and very happy marriage to old what's his name. And so, I find myself here once again in this beautiful place that is a keeping place for art and artefacts from the world's oldest living culture. And now, with the newest and one of the most beautiful and powerful pieces of art created by a pretty fabulous, powerful, and potent woman, which is a piece that enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. And in Lindy's powerful creation, not only will me and my little family come here and lose and find ourselves all at the same time, but so will many other folks. And we all get to do it on the country of my ancestors, because you see concrete does not remove or cover country. Country exists whether we are here or not. But the country of my ancestors is now further enhanced by the beauty of "Ouroboros" or "Ouroboros". And it is also now especially enlivened by that fabulous creation, inviting everyone to come and be part of the art, culture, and life here on Ngunnawal country. Now, I would like to welcome you all to the land of my ancestors, in the language of my ancestors. A language that was once thought dead, but we Ngunnawal people we knew it was only sleeping, and we have awoken it. Speaks in Ngunnawal Language. And what I've just said to you is, that today we're gathering together on Ngunnawal country, and this country is my ancestors spiritual homeland. And we, all of us in this room and with that beautiful creature outside, we are keeping the pathways of my ancestors alive by walking together as one. Welcome to Ngunnawal country.

- Thank you, Aunty Jude. Aunty Jude has also worked closely as elder and residents with Lindy on "Ouroboros" over the last couple of years. And it's been beautiful to watch that relationship unfold. So, thank you, Aunty Jude, for sharing so much with the National Gallery and sharing so much with Lindy. Today, is a very special occasion, and when Lindy and I were standing in front of "Ouroboros", we reflected that in 2020 on the 2nd of November, we stood on the site where "Ouroboros" is, and we thought about what could be possible. Tonight, and so much more, Lindy will talk about what has been possible for her and what will be possible for us to experience. Tonight, the 2024 Annual Lecture is supported by our great friends at Pallion, and we thank them for their ongoing partnership. And "Abundance" is a wonderful partnership with Pallion. And if you haven't had a chance to see it yet, I hope between now and June you'll get a chance to see "Abundance", which is such an inspiration from "Ouroboros". And the great thing about "Abundance", unlike "Ouroboros", is that when it's finished its display here at the National Gallery, it'll travel around the country for at least the next five years, inspiring people to come to Canberra to see "Ouroboros". The Annual Lecture was established in 1983 to support the National Gallery's mission to advance the voice of visual artists. It coincided with the opening of the gallery in 1982, and we've brought some of the world's leading thinkers to present ideas to the Australian public. And past lecturers have included James Terrell, Cara Walker, and Mark Quinn. And tonight, it seems apt that the Annual Lecture is presented by Dr. Lindy Lee, one of Australia's most accomplished artists. Tonight, we're also joined by an online audience across Australia and around the world. So, we look forward to hearing more about the inspiration that brought Lindy to this place to make "Ouroboros". But let me just go a few steps back, because in 2018, Council Chair Ryan Stokes and I started thinking about what we could do to make this National Gallery be truly complete. With more than 40 years of history, we focused on ensuring that the building architecture was rectified. And we also thought about the unfinished plan of the National Sculpture Garden, started in 1982, but never finished. And so, tonight and today we've taken major steps to bring to fruition the completion of the National Sculpture Garden. And in 2020, we started discussions with Lindy to make the work that marked our 40th anniversary. And that was such a big idea in our heads, but we were driven by some great ideas that James Mollison, the inaugural gallery director, shared with me. James suggested to me that there were three criteria for works entering the national collection. They were that it should be a work of art that had absolute resolutions in the artist practise. It could also be a moment of innovation, or thirdly, it could be a moment of breakthrough. And I think after our launch today, I'm biased, but I think we ticked the three boxes. And I hope James is watching us today and feels proud, like we are, about adding a significant work to the national collection. "Ouroboros" celebrates Lindy Lee's four decades of work, but also demonstrates the ambition that we have for Australian art and the ambitions to advance and complete the National Sculpture Garden. Lindy started her career in the early 1980s and studied at the Chelsea School of Art in London and Sydney College of the Arts in Sydney. In 2001, she received a PhD in Fine Art from the University of New South Wales. And Lindy also was a senior lecturer at the Sydney College of the Arts for over 20 years where she taught and mentored a new generation of Australian artists that are making exciting works today. Alongside her academic practise and her artworks, Lindy also made a significant contribution as an arts leader, and some of her roles have included founding member of Gallery Foray in Sydney's Chinatown, former trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, former board member of Artspace and Australian Centre for Photography, former president of the Asia Australian Artist Association, and former deputy chair of the Visual Arts and Crafts Fund at the Australia Council, and she's currently, a board member of Creative Australia. And earlier this year, Lindy's contribution to art and art education was recognised when she was awarded an Order of Australia for her distinguished service to contemporary visual arts. So, we come here tonight to celebrate "Ouroboros", but also, to amplify and advance the voice of an Australian artist that takes the pulse of the world today that makes us feel connected and gives us things to feel wondrous about. It's my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Lindy Lee.

- Oh my God, it's happening. Okay, I've just gotta get myself ready. You know, in about 40 years ago, I'm gonna start it this way. In 1985, I had my first solo show at a place called Union Street. It was an artist-run space. Anybody who's an artist knows about these places. They're wonderful and really important grassroots organisations that build our culture. Anyway, 1985, I've had my first solo show. One, James Mollison comes with a bag of money and he's got a mission and he wants to buy the work of emerging artists, and I'm one of them. And I just want for James, where are you? No, he's not here. But anyway, forget that, I'm nervous. But anyway, I just wanna thank James for that, because for a whole generation of Australian artists, that was a huge leg up, you know, to be affirmed in that way, to be part of the national collection is quite a thing. Shortly after he bought, and I'll show you, this is the work that he bought. And I'm gonna flip through these slides by the way, because I have now had a very long career and I've had too much work and there's too much to show, so I'm just gonna go racing through it. Oops, anyway, where was I? So, curiously, it's almost 40 years ago that I stood in this very auditorium, because James Mollison invited me and I was going to do my very first artist talk. And I was as scared as anything. And I tell you what, things haven't changed, but I've done a lot since then. Anyway, this is gonna be quite a personal talk, because it needs to be. But I always felt, I've always felt that I had this huge question mark furrowed between my brows. And it sort of happened when I was very young, and I first realised that death happened. And it's not that I was a morbid child, by the way, I'm not saying that, but you know, this just really confronting fact. I don't even know how it happened, but I realised that death was a real thing. And in my little brain, in my little heart, it was nonsense. It's like, how's it possible that one can have a life and you die? Where's the meaning in that? What, you know, what's the purpose of it all? If in the end, all everything goes. So, this question has perplexed me for almost my entire life. And it is actually the trajectory of my work. And this is also compounded by the fact that I have this face, which was a predominantly white culture. So, and you know, I was just speaking to the taxi driver who took me here tonight, and he was telling me about his experiences of being Indian and British. And it was great, because, you know, anybody who has any sense of splitness, you know, division, you know, we understand this in each other. And I actually, think that all human beings have this sense of splitness, but we won't talk about that quite yet. Anyway, so I sort of grew up and, you know, I really was worried about this thing that everything ends. And I was also conflicted about my identity, which I've kind of talked about a little bit. I remember going to the Chinese Club on a Sunday, you know, and my family will back me up on this, and we'd eat delicious Chinese food, et cetera, et cetera, except Lindy wanted a hamburger. You know, it's like, "Nah, don't want to eat this. Hamburger." And I remember sort of then the next day going to school, Morningside State School, and just sort of wanting to be a blonde surfy chick and president of the Monkeys Fan Club. And by the way, those things were never gonna happen. You know, I finished high school and I really spent the next decade running away from any idea of being an artist because for a start, there were, as I said before, there were no role models in my life. There was no woman of colour who was an artist, you know, that I could see. And there were no women artists for a start, you know, that I could see, there were, of course, but they were invisible. And so, I found myself doing things like graphic design, high school art teaching, art history, everything but being an artist. I so was running away from it, 'cause I was absolutely convinced that was not for me. And I blamed the schoolboy at the bus stop one day, 'cause we were having this argument, and I'm surprised I didn't really punch him. But he was telling me, "Well, my dad says that, 'Women can be quite good cooks, but never a chef.'" He's so lucky that he lived through that moment. Well, anyway, but no matter how angry I was in that moment, I also half believed it. In fact, not even half believed it, I really believed it, 'cause I just didn't think women were as good as men. And that's just the nature of the culture at that time. Anyway, moving right along. So, I'm running away from trying to be an artist and I end up in Canada to study art history, go figure. Canada's beautiful, but it was like moving from Brisbane to Brisbane except it was minus 60 degrees. And then I kind of had this dark night of the soul where I was really deeply miserable. And the dilemma was, you know, I could live a comfortable enough life as a teacher, that would be okay, you know, and teaching is a really fine profession, but I had this really deep sort of low-grade dissatisfaction that was eating at me. And it was all to do with a life unfulfilled, you know? So, that was on that side. It would be an okay life, but not a fulfilled life. Then this, oh, horrible idea came up like, you wanna be an artist, Lindy, be an artist. And I'd say, "But I'll fail. I can't do it, it's not possible." Anyway, for some reason I decided it was probably better to fail at something that I cared about than live this low-grade life of dissatisfaction. So, I jumped from Canada to Italy, had the most fantastic year of my life. I mean, all the Italian food, you don't have to let me tell you all about that, and all this incredible art at firsthand. You know, walking down the streets of Florence and seeing, you know, Gerlandias "Gates of Paradise". You know, everything was just amazing. And then one day I came across this painting in the Uffizi, and oh, my God, I looked at it and I thought, oh, that is a bit violent. So, there's this woman slaying, you know, this man. And I was just, I was kind of mesmerised by it. And I looked down at the label and I realised, wait a minute, a woman painted that, Artemisia Gentileschi, and she has quite an extraordinary history and I do not have enough time in this moment to give it to you, but she was amazing. But the point was, is that little Lindy, the seed dropped. If this woman could paint such a painting 400 years ago, then maybe I could try just a little bit. And so, with that, I decided to build a portfolio, while I was in Italy and apply to Chelsea School of Art, and I was accepted. And I lived in London for a few years, again, had a great time, but you know, really not quite knowing what I was wanting to do. And really, you know, the commitment to be an artist, really, it's not an immediate thing. You have to grow into it somehow. And you have to find the confidence or the trust in your life to do it. Eventually though, you know, I ran out of money. My parents thankfully supported me a bit, but, you know, I was also working at domestic, what was it called? Spic and Span Domestic cleaning agency for £1 an hour. It was not a living wage. And I decided, well, I needed to come back to Australia, which ultimately, was the best thing I could do, because in a sense, I had to come back to the place of my greatest discomfort to find the work I needed to do. So, I come back to Australia, and by this time though, I am absolutely committed to at least give it my best shot to be an artist. Oh, and by the way, just sidebar story, I had cancer in some point in all of this, and there's something very clarifying about a rifle, you know, looking down the nose of that rifle, and this is called cancer. And I realised that if I only have this one life, I better damn well make sure I do the things I care about. So that cancer was a gift, and that was a long time ago. But anyway, back to art school, Sydney College, the arts, Sydney 1980, and I'm committed. So, you know, I've cleared everything away. I've got myself a part-time job as a cleaner, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's already in my studio, stretched my first canvas. And then that moment. Now what? What do you make your work about? You know, it's that blank canvas moment, and I was frozen. And it was also this thing also about, at that point, every single stroke I made on a canvas, everything I did looked like everybody, you know, somebody else's work. And so, that was horribly dissatisfying, where was my originality? You know, all that sort of stuff. And we were also going through a period called, well, the beginnings of postmodernism. And I'm not gonna go up too much into this, but I am thirsty. And it was thought in that period that it was the end of history. Everything had been done. Every stylistic convention had been invented. There was nothing else to do except parody and irony and, you know, and appropriation and copying. So, I kind of, in one way I thought, okay, if these are the conditions of the time, I will sail into the storm and not rail against it. So, I ended up sort of going to the college library and pulling out books of paintings that I'd loved when I was in Europe. And then I started to photocopy these images. And do you know those old photocopiers, which were actually called photo stats? And I don't know how it's used, but it's sort of static electricity, heat, and fusing of the carbon. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. And if it didn't work, you'd just end up with black sooty hands. Do you remember those days? Well, I love that soot. So, as I was photocopying all these portraits actually, and I kept repeating this process and building up this layer of carbon, and it became beautiful and mysterious to me. And it was as if the image was both embedded into its materiality and also like a ghostly thing floating above. And this was the first one that I did. Oh no, sorry, that's me in London. I just, okay, yeah, me in London being an art student. Note, flagon of wine, very seventies. Note, probably, yes, cigarettes. Yes, I used to smoke, and an egg shell palette thing. Okay, definite art student stuff, all right. Okay, so this is the first photocopy that I ever did and I still think it's very beautiful. And this is after a van Eyck painting. So, at the same time, you know, I was also kinda like, I knew something magical had happened, but I wasn't quite sure what that was. And at the same time, I was also painting and I remember being in my studio, I was in honours, I think honours year. And my studio at that time was a decommissioned men's urinal. Boy, that was good, because I remember propping up my paintings against the, you know, that long trough. Anyway, if you can make art in art school, by the way, you can make art anywhere. Anyway, look, I was so frustrated and I was copying, I can't remember what kind of painting, whatever it was, and it was just not working, blah blah blah. And I got really cranky and I had a tantrum and I just spread all this black wax all over the surface and then with just incredible aggression, just started to scrape it away. And I don't know, something that they kind of, this voice, this magic, it said, "This is correct, do this." And I didn't know what I was doing, but the voice said, "This is correct." And I was so excited about it I don't think I slept that night. And I raced into the studio early that morning and that feeling was there still. Now, there was something about the materiality about the wax and the sooty black, which I'll go into later. It's just about materiality. But that was my first connection of how materials and world means something. So, anyway, I'm just gonna whip through a bunch of stuff that I did in the eighties. Okay, so that was my first photocopy. This is called "The Silence of Painters". Yep, I'm just, basically, I'm appropriating from the old masters. And this is just to demonstrate that I even use my favourite, you know, Artemisia Gentileschi. And so, that's her version of Judith, and that's my version. And there are some paintings. But the thing, you know, the thing is though, I wasn't trying to be a clever postmodernist, I wasn't trying to do parody or anything like that. What I was really sincerely doing was, you know, when I looked into the faces of these portraits, I mean you look into a great painting, you know? And a Rembrandt for instance, you know, what you see is the interior life of that person continuously unfolding and it's deep and mysterious. And what I realised was I was copying the artists I envied and I realised that I used, and envy is a really interesting thing. It can be negative, yes, but envy is also an emotion that tells you what you need and what you care for most. And so, when I used to teach, I used to say, "Let's play the envy game." Which artist do you envy so much that you dammit wish you had done that, you know? And that is a good game to play, 'cause that shows you a path perhaps. So, I didn't even love all of these paintings. So, you know, the red one is an El Greco and I didn't actually, love El Greco, but what I envied was his spiritual passion. And I wanted that for myself, but I didn't know how to have it. So, appropriation for me was not about irony, it was about redemption. I needed to find meaning in my life. And somehow through copying, that was giving meaning. And what I realised was that the copy was the perfect metaphor for me. I was always gonna be a bad copy of China, never gonna work properly. And I was never gonna be a white Australian. So, it's just between those two poles I was now where could I find my authenticity? And seemed like the copy itself was my pathway, and that was the irony. So, yeah, just slipping right along. I don't know what I'm doing anyway. All right, so, you'll notice that I'll use a very limited palette, and there's a reason for that. I found that, you know, now that I've lived, now that I'm 70, I'll admit it. I realised that this had been a pattern in the development of my creative work. And so, every five years or so, this materiality would call to me and say, "Use me, play with me." Invariably my attitude was, nah, not so much go away, I'm busy doing this. But it would start screaming at me, "No, you're gonna do it." And so, eventually, I would do it. And so the colours emerged. So first, if it was black, and I'm just gonna go through the meanings of the colours. This is sort of in the eighties and nineties. Oh, I forgot to mention Merleau-Ponty, sorry. So, also I love what Merleau-Ponty wrote about colour. He was a French philosopher, and he said that we only know colour in the world, because of our experience of it in the world it's embodied. We only know the colour red, because of the colour of our blood, the colour of that sunset, the colour in my mother's favourite red dress. That is how we know colour. And so, when I worked with colours, it actually provoked or allowed me to distil all of these really deep and painful questions in my heart. And so, these colours would allow these questions to coalesce, to form, to be looked at and maybe addressed finally. So, these are the colours, black, and black means night, solace, death, grief, unknowable, unknown, not knowing, dark mystery, and the unfathomable. Red, is the colour of blood, matter, corporeality, this woo, sorry, this body, this life, this existence. Ultramarine blue is the colour of spirit, the ocean, the oceanic infinite depths, peace, the beginning, beginnings, quintessence, and belonging. Purple is the colour, well, it's the combination of red and blue actually, and it's matter and spirit combined. And for me, it's the colour of the bruises in the heart basically. And orange, orange is actually, Buddhism or zen. It's about pure presence. And dharma gates are countless and I vow to open to them, and that is probably my favourite zen vow. So, dharma gates, it just simply means that in every single second of your existence you have an opportunity to be open or close to your existence. The vow is to be open even in those moments when it is just so awful you can't even bear to look at yourself. In that moment, be open even to that. And if we are open to those moments, then maybe there is gold also. Then we come to this particular green, and I'm gonna tell you a very personal story, which sort of sums up in a way how I have a relate, what colours do for me, or anyway. So, I'm working in Chinatown at some point and I come across this jade bracelet. It's not this one, but anyway, and I look at it, oh God, and it starts whispering to me, "Ocean of birth and death, ocean of birth and death." And I keep saying, "But you are $900, I can't afford you." But it's still whispering, "Ocean of birth and death." I'm like, "What the, you know, I can't pay 900." Anyway, I paid $900. About two weeks later, my brother, John, calls me and he tells me that his son, my nephew, Ben, has been diagnosed with cancer, and it's probably not gonna end well. So, I fly up to Brisbane, 'cause I was living in Sydney, and spend the weekend with the family. And just before I'm about to go to the airport, Ben takes me up to his bedroom and I haven't been in that bedroom for like a decade or more, 'cause he's about 20 at that time I think. And I walk in and his room is entirely covered with this green, and you know, the green of the jade. And he looks at me and he says, "Oh, Aunty Lindy, it's just this is my favourite colour, you know, I just love it. That's all." Anyway, he sat me down, we sat on his floor, and he said, "Aunty Lindy, the reason that I want to talk to you." And he pulled out this wad of drawings about this big, and he said, "Aunty Lindy, I just wanna be an artist no matter what happens, I want to be an artist." And we kind of knew by that stage it was terminal. But I also knew in that moment that my job, my real job, was just to make sure that then as he passed through his life, knew that he had his own creativity and that could never be taken away from him no matter what. And so, he would come down to my studio in Sydney and for whatever reason, he loved the Bee Gees, who doesn't, but we would be singing and dancing to the Bee Gees and doing work together, and we had a great time. And I believe his creativity was affirmed at least during that period. Eventually, you know, he did die. And about two weeks later, a friend of mine sent me a link to a new scientist article, and it said the colour of the universe is wasabi green. And I read it and apparently, well, according to this article, if you combine the colour of a star that is dying with a star that is just being born, it is this green. And so, that is a very beautiful piece of poetry. And that kind of, and that this story kind of encapsulates the the style of journey I've had with each colour. These colours are intensely personal and they reflect something very deep that has gone on in my life. So, at some point, you know, I'm just giving you chunks of my life. So, at some point, probably in the, I don't know, it was in the Keating era, I think, because Australia was opening up to Asia. And anyway, I was invited to speak at this conference about China and Australia, and I'm sort of like, "Why me?" Anyway, I go, I talk, and I show them, you know, the works that you've just seen, they're just drew absolute references to the western cannon. And I find myself saying, "I don't know why you guys have invited me here, because clearly my horizon is Western. I belong to the West." And about one and a half nanoseconds after that, this incredible epiphany. And it was, “Lindy, if you truly belong, you don't have to declare that you belong. It's just a given.” And I realised how much of the painful racism I had been repressing all of my life and it just came flooding back. So, my work pivoted and I turned towards, rather than plundering art history, I plundered my family's photograph albums. Family, my family is here. Me and my little sister. And this work is called "Birth and Death". And I made this to commemorate Ben. This is 100 accordion books of everybody in our family going back five generations. So, it was to commemorate him, to place, to give him honour in the line of the family. This is one of my brother, Walter. For some reason I'm calling it "Sagacious Liu", secret story. Okay, this one is a particularly important work for me. And, all right, I'm just gonna do this. I promised the lighting guy that I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm doing it. Okay, so these two pages are from my grandfather, and these of a market gardener that he knew. These are exemption certificates. And so, the policy, so around federation, the, you know, Australian policies were really very anti-Chinese. So, I can't remember the date, but it's around federation. The government introduced a law that said that any Chinese person coming to Australia had to be subjected to a dictation test. And that dictation test could be carried out in any European language, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, German, whatever. And if you failed that test, you weren't allowed into the country. My grandfather had the luck to have come to this country before that exemption test, but he had to carry around with him a certificate of exemption proving that he had a right to be here. Just a little part of our history, just saying. This is a really, really important work to me and it's called "The Seamless Tomb". And it's after a Zen Ch'an, which we'll talk about maybe later, but you can hardly see it. But the photograph is of my father, my mother, my oldest brother, John, and my mum's sister. My mother, if you can see it in this photograph, is six months pregnant. She's about to, yeah, she's six months pregnant. My father is about, in a couple of hours, is about to step onto a boat, which is gonna take him to Australia. And I can't imagine, every time I see this photo, I cannot imagine what it would've been for my mum who is six months pregnant. It is 1946, it is just the end of Japanese invasion and the beginning of the Chinese revolution. So, and she can't come to Australia, because it's government policy. So, I think it's like eight years before, oh, they didn't know, but it end ends up being eight years before my parents are reunited. Okay, now where are we? Okay, I should bring up Zen Buddhism, because it's really important in my life. And I really, I kind of, I really did struggle as to whether or not I was gonna tell this story, because it's a bit wacky, but hey, you are here. I'm here. Anyway, look, all my life I've been subjected to really, really severe headaches, and the cause is, you know, a lot of things. But anyway, on a particular time, about just over 30 years ago, I had a headache that it lasted 10 days, and on the 10th day, and every day I would swim and the swimming would alleviate it a little bit. But you know, but on the 10th day I got myself to the pool and the pain was so severe that I just knew that if I moved just this much, I was gonna throw up. So, I thought I will try this thing called meditation. I had no idea what that was. I had friends who did it, but you know, I didn't. But I really had no option, 'cause I couldn't move. So, I closed my eyes and three things happened. The first thing was that my whole vision filled up with blood red, go figure, don't know that one. The second thing was there was this immense love for my students, and it wasn't me loving them, they were just in this vast container of love. And the third thing that happened, which is the really wacky thing, is this voice that boomed and reverberated inside me, and said, "Lindy Lee, you will have complete obedience to the way." To which I said, "Fuck off, I'm a late 20th-century woman, I don't do obedience." And then the pain just skyrocketed. And I went, "Okay, just let the pain up. I'll go home, I'll do whatever you want." Anyway, I got myself home, and I went to the phone books. It was phone book days, and I looked up the word zen, 'cause that was the only meditation I'd ever heard of. It happened that Sydney Zen Centre was in the next suburb to me. So, that night I went to Sydney Zen Centre. And again, these two conflicting experiences. The first one was, excuse me, these people are frustrated, they're doing these bows, this incense, they're chanting, they're sitting, you know, like, what are they doing? I don't, not for me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not me. But this other voice, which was even more insistent said, "You are home." Cutting this kinda weird story, paring it down. Anyway, so what ends up happening is from then on I pretty much wake up at five o'clock every morning and I found myself driving to the zendo to meditate. And I was really keen and enthusiastic about this sport. And after about six months, I decide to do jukai, which is to take, to formalise your commitment to the practise. I, of course, don't realise it takes people years to make this decision, 'cause it's not a light decision. And I've never even done a zen retreat, by the way, by this time. So, it's a bit pretentious of me to think that I can take jukai. Anyway, I wrote to the Zen teacher, and apparently, what I wrote was fine. And he said, "Yes, I think you're ready." So, I go into my first retreat thinking, I've got this, I've been meditating for hours every day. It's gonna be so good. No, if anybody has ever been to a Zen retreat, in those days, we got up at four o'clock and you sit still with the occasional kind of walking meditation, but you sit stock still and you know, that's it. And if your body is not conditioned to this, my God, it's painful, it is so painful. And then there was the vegetarian food. I don't do vegetarian food. I do not do pit toilets. Are you kidding me? I shower every second day, you know, like I'm such a city girl. And it's like, sorry, it's not me. And anyway, by day four, I'm just gonna, I have had it, I have given up and I go to my tent and I'm just thinking, I don't care what I've said to all of my friends and I've bragged, you know, zen is so cool. I'll go home, I'll eat humble pie and I'll just say, "It really wasn't for me." So anyway, I'm going to my tent, I pick up an apple and I'm just absolutely, I am never coming back to this place ever again. I'm absolutely determined. And I take a bite of that apple, and the universe splits me in half. I'm cracked open. It feels like a trap door has opened underneath me and I've fallen through into the Milky Way and have become the Milky Way. Sounds crazy, right? But that's the feeling, and actually, it was real. And so, for about three days, this feeling of absolute connection and I knew absolutely that the boundaries of my skin, the boundaries of skin are not the boundaries of your being. You know, we flow into the world as much as the world flows into us. And it took me at least 25 or 30 years to digest these early very intense Zen experiences, which have now become my work, but I'm getting to that in a minute. Anyway, I'm still on the trail of trying to find my chineseness, bloody, blah, blah, blah. And I find myself getting an Asia-link fellowship to study calligraphy in Beijing, 'cause I think, you know, at least I should try to understand the aesthetic traditions, you know, of my ancestry. So, I go to Beijing, find a calligraphy master, it's all good. I'm enthusiastic, I'm grinding away, you know, pints of ink and I'm terribly enthusiastic. And then I start, and that voice, that same voice that said, "Lindy Lee, you will have complete obedience," rears its head and says, "No, you must not do this." And then I think, well, what the hell am I supposed to do? I've got this fellowship, I'm supposed to be studying calligraphy, you know, six months, what am I supposed to be doing? So, but anyway, I end up just, you know, doing these splashes, and somehow this feels really authentic. So, I start making, you know, an art practise out of these splashes. When I get back to Australia, I just come across, I just, you know, a book literally comes off the bookshelf and it's this essay about flung ink painting. And apparently, well, not apparently, ancient Chinese monks would meditate for a short time, take up a flask of ink and then toss it to a paper or silk. And that mark was understood absolutely to be caused by every condition in the universe that sub tense at that moment. So, it takes all of the power of the universe to come together to make that. And I not only love that, I believe this to be true. And it, anyway, it also reminded me of a very central Buddhist story about cosmology, the net of Indra. So, the net of Indra is this vast infinite net, this is the universe. And at the ties of the net is this beautiful jewel. It is utterly unique and so beautiful, but it's beauty is because it has received the light of every other jewel in the universe. And I love that, because that story is about interconnection. Everything has to exist in order for any one single thing to exist. And so, this is, you know, that story is about connection. All of us, you know, this lecture can't happen except you are here and I am here. Life can't happen except we are all in it together. So, I start a new kind of painting practise. I'm just gonna flip through these. And then this other thing happens. You know, several lots of things have happened in my life, apparently. Anyway, so the thing happens and I go to a foundry with a friend of mine, 'cause she's gonna pick up some work. And I'm just watching, they're doing a bronze pour, and the bronze keeps dripping onto the floor, making these incredible shapes. And I think, oh, I've gotta do that, 'cause that's, you know, that's the next thing. But, you know, the foundry wouldn't let me do it, 'cause it's really dangerous. It's 1,200 degrees of heat and if one little drop falls on you, it will, you know, burn straight through you. But eventually, I find a foundry who will let me play and I'll talk about that later, 'cause this is really important. Anyway, so, well, I'll just mention it anyway. So, I end up finding a foundry, it is Urban Art Projects in Brisbane who actually, have become really important collaborators with me. And this is at UAP. And so, the flung bronzes start to happen. And I love these shapes, because, you know, I can't them. It's the universe that makes them. I can't control anything. The only thing I can control actually, is the moment I receive the ladle is, you know, it could be like this, or like this, but whatever, however I receive it, because of the weight, there's already momentum. And if I don't follow the exact momentum that it wants to flow onto, it's really dangerous, 'cause it could tip back on me. So, there is no control, but yet, these glorious shapes emerge. And just some early ones. And I think this is, no, there's one similar that's in "The Charred Forest Show" that's within the building at the moment. By the way, I've got a solo exhibition somewhere around here. Okay. All right. And I'm just gonna quickly go through this. Is Jason Carl here? If not, nevermind. Anyway, so I need to talk about, I think I need to talk about UAP now. So, I've just mentioned them, but I owe so much to them. And the way it all happened was that I'm sitting at Dan Tobin, who is a founding director of UAP, I met him at a party, you know, and anyway, it's kind of a long story and I'll just briefly just say that eventual, well, somehow I got invited to go and play at UAP in Brisbane, and they really meant play. And I thought, you know, I thought they were, you know, like I just thought they were a small outfit, you know, double car garage, you know, go and do a few things. It ends up there, you know, like I arrive and it's two aircraft hanger size, you know? And all I wanna do is like, play a little bit. But they really welcomed me and they really are genuine and they just facilitated every, every whim I had. And one of these whims was playing with custard and lead making these little maquettes, which would eventually become, I mean this is scaled up, these sorts of sculptures. Now, I've already said that UAP were really generous, but they were more than generous. They even did things like, in the early years they would fly me to Shanghai, where they also had another foundry, to play. There was no obligation, it was just to play, just to see what Lindy can do. I mean, that is such a gift to an artist. And one trip I remember, you know, I was just, I don't know what I was doing, but Jamie Perrow, who was the principal at UAP in Shanghai, he just said, "Oh, Lindy," he just tossed me this brief and said, "This is a public art space, you wanna have a go at it?" And I thought, oh, okay, hang on. Oh no, sorry, I've just skipped ahead of myself. Okay, I've gotta get into fire. Sorry, I'm gonna skip very quickly through this. Anyway, so somewhere along this journey also, you know, the voice comes back and says, "Lindy, you have to start playing with fire." And I again, have this argument, and again, I find a studio in Beijing and I start burning stuff. And these are some of the things that I was burning. I was also at that time listening to podcasts by a dharma teacher called Patrick Kearney. And he was talking about the fire of delusion. And I realised what I was doing was a kind of. So, a delusion is just all those self conceit, those attitudes that you accumulate, you know, opinions you've got about this, that and the other. It's all just propaganda. It's just stuff. It's not real. It's not you. And so, I just realised that this practise of actually, mindfully burning with a soldering iron into paper was my meditation, my commitment to extinguishing as much delusion in this moment as possible. But, of course, this is an endless game. So, all right, so quickly going through some of the works that were created in this mode. I also started to play with rain. And this is what the rain does. So, the holes are burned, I chuck ink onto it and just let the rain persuade the ink to do whatever it needs to do. And I find them quite beautiful, and I love the fact that I didn't do them. Some end products. And then I start to also play with metal. And I love these works particularly. These were important and significant, because of the shadow life. So for me, the metal stands in for body. it's that which is solid, and the shadow life is spirit and the deep, they're intrinsic to each other. And that shadow life extends beyond the perimeter of the work itself. So, you know, okay, so back to Shanghai. So, I'm in the office at UAP and Jamie just chucks me this brief and I think, oh, okay, I'll have a go at it and maybe I'll just start using holes and metal and, oh, I think I should only use really simple forms, because it's not the form that actually matters, it's actually the action of dissolution, which maybe I can demonstrate through these next slides. Anyway, "Life of Stars", it's this work that I make and this is the beginnings of everything, another everything. So, this is about two stories high and I think she's pretty successful. So, she is mirror polished stainless steel. And this was the beginning, as I said, of a whole new range of work. And here is some more. This is "Secret Life of a Starlight Ember” outside of the MCA. "Heaven and Earth" in Xi'an in China, "The Eye of Infinity” in Hong Kong, "The Tenderness of Rain. This one, oh, I don't know, some award in China. I'm not very good at my CV, sorry. Ah, okay. Now, I love making these big works, it's so satisfying. But there was one thing that I was, you know, craving to do and this little boy is demonstrating it. He's peering inside, and this is something of what he sees. So, these are three different sculptures obviously, but the one on the left is "Ember" outside the MCA. But what I love about these and what entranced me was that this is entire cosmos inside and what would it be like, if you could give people the experience of this? So, this haunted me for a long time. Then along comes one Nick Mitzevich, summoned to Canberra, and he's walking me around the sculpture garden. And we come to a spot, you know, it's the corner and it's pretty uninteresting. And Nick actually says, "This is a pretty uninteresting corner and people drive past the NGA and don't even know it's there. Lindy, we want you to be as ambitious as possible and make us a beacon." And I'm kind of like, "Oh, okay, that sounds like a good job." No, it was wonderful, and I was also terrified. And I kind of think that, if he had asked me even two years earlier, I probably wouldn't have been ready to do it. But anyway, I was ready, and I was really excited, and I went home and I was thinking about it and I really wanted to make a work that embraced infinity, absolute presence, and something that not only symbolically, but experientially, was inclusive of everything and everyone under the heavens, that's ambitious I think. Anyway, I get home and I ask one of my assistants, Demi, to go down to Bunnings and to buy me all manner of hose pipes and stuff. And I start playing with, oh sorry, this is this slide, okay, I'm so well prepared. In my, you know, in my wish and desire to make, you know, that interior experience, I also make this work called moonlight deities, which was in my MCA survey show a few years ago. Then, all right, this is me playing with hose pipes. Infinity symbol's not gonna work. How does one make that stand up? But, you know, and so, you know, this is the creative process. This wasn't working. What am I to do? What am I to do? And somehow, I don't know, I don't know the exact sequence, but it's something to do with the two pythons that live in my roof. The fact that there are all sorts of snakes, you know, in the property where I live. And then I start thinking about the snake that swallows its own tail. And I realise, of course, this is the symbol of eternity. And not only is it a symbol of eternity, it's transcultural and transgenerational. Every culture that has had snakes has this symbol for infinity. And the first "Ouroboros", it's actually either "Ouroboros" or "Ouroboros". I flipped between the two. Anyway, the first "Ouroboros" was found in King Tutankhamun tomb, just letting you know. Anyway, this wasn't working. I started to think about the snake that swallows its own tail. Here are some, you know, working drawings, just showing method. You know, I just do thousands of drawings, and we come to this. So, I love this, you know, so eventually, you know, I do the working drawings, and UAP has done the engineering. And you know, the great thing about working with UAP is the artist just gets to have the idea, just gets to be creative. Like, I wanna do this, can you make it happen? And they go away and worry about it and they have to do the engineering and the costing and I just can have clean and pure thoughts. But anyway, so I love the fact that when I presented this to Nick and the cost of it was going up and there was, you know, there is controversy about that, but we'll leave that aside for a minute. But he said, Nick said, "Having seen this drawing, I cannot unsee it. We have to have it." So, thank you, Nick, for that. So, these are a few images of being in my studio and you know, my studio at that point was quite small. This is a third scale by the way, okay? So, we're working on a maquette that was a third scale, and it filled up the entire studio. There was not, you could only crawl, you could, you know, it was pretty intense. And I love this moment, all right? It's all fallen apart. So, I'm in the studio and I'm underneath everything and I'm calling to, Zoe, one of my assistants, just to move a chalk, 'cause I just wanna adjust something. I sort of didn't realise actually, that it's only taped together, the whole thing. And by removing one chalk, the whole thing fell apart on top of me. It was a grand moment. Fortunately, I survived. Now, for some reason I wanna talk about absolute reality. I don't know, here we go. So, in Zen there is this term Absolute Reality, and it's got nothing to do with dogma, or belief systems, or any ideologies of truth. It just simply refers to what is real. So, the actual reality of this lectern is that it's hard. The actuality of this glass, this water, is that it is gonna be cool and delicious in my mouth, 'cause I'm really thirsty. And there is also an Actual Reality, an Absolute Reality, in our connection with the universe. You know, we carry around so much in our heads all the time that we can't actually, feel with any intimacy our connection to each other and to this planet. And that's because we just live in our thought worlds. And our thought worlds actually aren't real. But the experience of being one with cosmos, one with everything is actually real. And that's the experience that I wanted to create with "Ouroboros". You'll be the judges of whether or not I've done that, but I feel as if it's looking pretty good. So, this sense of cosmos is really, really important to me, because especially for somebody like me who has always felt this deep sense of unbelonging and lack to realise that cosmos is the length, breadth, and depth of everything that has ever existed, exists right now and will exist into the future, and we are a part of that. And none of us will ever fall out of that set of relationships. We cannot fall out of the universe. And so, therefore we all belong. Belonging is our birthright. And for me, that is not just comforting, it's healing. Getting to the conclusion, not quite there yet. So, I just want to talk a little bit about two thinkers, philosophers, I guess you could call them, but who have been quite influential in my life. One, is Heidegger. You mustn't think that I read a lot of Heidegger, okay? It's just an essay called "Wood Paths". Anyway, Heidegger was apparently walking in a German forest one day, and well, a lot apparently, he walked a lot in forests. And he kept coming across these paths and they would just end. And this he found really curious, and not only curious, but infuriating, because aren't paths supposed to take us from A to B? Aren't paths supposed to, you know, at least there's a hut at the end of, you know, the path or whatever, but these they would end. And by the way, Heidegger was actually, interested in Daoism and he had a go at translating Te Ching, I think. And I love this essay, 'cause it's kind of like, it's the conceived, you know, you've heard the expression, "The Dao that can be explained is not the real Dao," all right? So, Heidegger had a really good go at explaining the Dao in "Wood Paths". So anyway, it was about this path situation. They would end, until anyhow, finally, at last he saw this man and he was cutting down trees and gathering grasses, cutting bushes. And he was the woodcutter. And he realised that the woodcutter was making the path as he was walking. And that is the path, that is our way. We can't predict the future, but our way is simply by paying attention and walking and doing as we go along. It is not necessarily a path that takes us to A to B. We make our paths with the walking. And I love that story. The second person is Dōgen, who is a 13th-century Zen philosopher, who knows, a Buddhist monk. And he wrote the "Genjokoan", and to distil it, it goes something like this. It is to study the self is to forget the self and be authenticated by the 10,000 things. And by that, I believe he means is that, if you really want to know who and what you are, drop every conceit, every construction you think you are, get rid of that and meet with intimacy that which comes your way. And with that, that is the making of you. You, our lives, are that interface between the outer and the inner. Just doing this and making our way through the world. Somehow, I don't know if you can see it, but these two stories or whatever actually, sum up my practise method. I just obey that which calls me and I make the path according to that. And the other thing that I really love about this human being business or this just life business, is that we are historical, we are simultaneously historical and unhistorical. And by that I mean that it has, like those flashes that I just showed you, it has taken the entirety of history and the universe to make your life. Everything has had to come into being to make your existence. And simultaneously, this existence, this moment will never ever happen again. And that blows my mind. We are the sum of all history, and yet, this moment, this being is utterly unique. What do you do with that? I think you just wonder and you go in awe and you have gratitude about that. So, you know, the beginning of this talk, you know, I kind confessed that my life, the beginning of my life, was really riddled with very painful questions about identity, about worthiness, and I really did have this profound lack of belonging. But as I explained, you know, over the years I've come to understand that, you know, I am part of something much bigger. We all are. And each of us holds up the sky in our own different ways. You know, our genesis can be traced back to the beginnings of cosmos. And the thing is that matter cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed. And when I work with elemental materials, I'm actually embracing the matter of existence. The materials I use, you know, the wood, the metal, the fire, they all open intimate pathways to the real and the actual. You know, the actuality of experiencing as opposed to the thought worlds that we habitually live in. And the really important thing that I've learned is that life is not about fitting in, it's actually, about growing the grace to be thoroughly who and what you are, and that's not fitting in. And with that, and if you cultivate that grace of just being exactly who you are, and yes, this is a lifetime practise, you'll also grow the grace to allow the other to be exactly who and what they are, and I think that is belonging. That's all I've got to say.

- Thank you very much. It was very beautiful.

- Well, I think you deserve a breather and that glass of water.

- Yes.

- As some of you can see and appreciate today, the last four years have been quite a profound journey for the National Gallery, for our team working with Lindy, and her extraordinary production crew. And we feel really, so touched to be able to share Lindy's views of the world and the way that she approaches it with great gentleness, but also this great sense of responsibility. And as I think you've all heard tonight, there's a great sense of purpose about Lindy's practise. And I think that's one of the reasons that Lindy is an artist that captures the zeitgeist of the world we're in now and contributes so directly to the evolution of art history. So, thank you for sharing that with us today. We have a couple of questions. Well, actually more than a couple. And then we have some on your screen, on the screen here, so perhaps I might just take a couple of questions. Lindy, what did you learn through the process of making "Ouroboros" and how did it shift your practise?

- Oh, oh, that's such a big question. Well, Nick, actually, for a start, I have an idea for another sculpture. If anybody has a few million dollars, I can help you. How did "Ouroboros", well, I actually, don't know how to an answer that. It's just, it's a matter of, you know, like I am 70 and I have worked in this career for over 40 years. And I think I said on ABC TV a little while ago. "At last, I finished my apprenticeship, I'm ready to go, I'm starting." And that's actually how I feel. So, I think that "Ouroboros" is a work that has allowed me to work with full maturity and I really thank you, Nick, for having the confidence and faith in me, because it was, that's a big thing that you asked. And so, I think I now actually, am more confident that I can do these things, and so I can't wait to begin.

- That sounds like a bit of an end, but there's one more question that I think we can use as an end, 'cause it's actually, a very beautiful question and it's a question that perhaps we don't know the answer to it. But the question is, does "Ouroboros" sing in the wind?

- Oh, I don't know, but she feels different inside. And actually, Liam, the truck driver, we were trying to figure out whether what she was whistling down the highway. And actually, so the answer is, I can't answer you, because I haven't actually, experienced her with wind. When she was driving down the highway, she was actually wrapped up, but the wind was so fierce that it was also ripping out all of the cloth.

- One of the things that everyone's gonna experience tonight is "Ouroboros" at night, because in the daytime she reflects us and the world and at nighttime she becomes a gigantic lantern. So, please join me in thanking the extraordinary Lindy Lee and please enjoy the giant lantern that is "Ouroboros" that you'll see on the way out. Thank you very much, Lindy Lee.