Contemplating Lindy Lee’s Ouroboros

Lindy Lee’s Ouroboros was commissioned in 2022 to mark the 40th anniversary of the National Gallery of Australia. This monumental sculpture is the latest artist commission to transform the Gallery’s Sculpture Garden in Kamberri/Canberra. Standing four metres high and weighing 13 tonnes, the stainless steel form cost the Gallery $14 million, making it the most ambitious piece Lee has created to date. The immersive form of a snake swallowing its own tail explores the universality of the cyclical nature of human life, allowing a visitor to the sculpture to immerse themselves inside the snake’s mouth and body. Its perforated and mirrored reflective surface encapsulates many of the themes explored in Lee’s practice — such as the process of art piercing surfaces and the idea of the cosmos as influenced by her Zen Buddhist teachings and Taoism.

During the day, ​​Ouroboros reflects the sun, sky, trees, clouds and people surrounding it. Its mirrored surface considers each detail it encounters, merging and contorting the everyday along its curved exterior. These impressions are interrupted by the repeated perforations scattered across the work’s surface. The irregular sized holes, burnt out of the steel structure, allow those who enter Ouroboros to contemplate the outer world from within. Ouroboros’s monstrous form holds a fragile mirror up to the viewer as if one single breath of wind brushed its surface and left behind the world.

At night the heavy steel structure burdens the land it’s placed on and yet becomes and embodies the light-filled starry night sky. On a winter’s evening the structure morphs into a manifestation of the night sky residing on earth. The now dark surface beams with the light emitting from the structure’s pierced surface. Where Ouroboros earlier reflected the bright-blue Kamberri/Canberra winter sky, it now embodies the stars and the heavens, the space astronauts are so keen to explore. The warm breaths of visitors create puffs of steam in the air and the piercing beams of light detect this human presence. Inside, visitors are able to bathe in the light that had been absorbed during the day; they view the outside world illuminated from within the sculpture.

Lindy Lee’s practice is deeply rooted in Zen Buddhist and Taoist thought and the meditative ​​experience this provides. Take your time contemplating the Ouroboros. Consider the snake's length and its size. How long does a snake need to swallow its own tail? The visitor could consider their own cycle of life: of birth and death; of beauty and sadness; of growth and regrowth; of doors opening and closing; of the simplicity and complexity of this cycle and of the distinct humanness required to consider life in this way. Lee’s practice relies heavily on the intentional slowness of process that invites meditative practice into space.

As an artist who doesn’t shy away from death and grief and the great pain of love, Lee asks the visitor to go on a journey with her. Through this interactive piece, she asks us to contemplate these endless cycles of life and the inescapable spiral. Her piercing processes invite us to meditate upon the interactions between the human and the greater cosmos. Her mark making asks the visitor to appreciate the trace, however small or intimate, they leave upon their loved ones and this world. It's a meditation on the inner self and the illumination of the heavens on earth.

This story is part of the 2024 Young Writers Digital Residency.