Spotlight: Artist Lindy Lee FAHA

Prominent and celebrated artist Lindy Lee FAHA is known for thoughtful artworks that draw on her Chinese-Australian heritage. Her work explores connection, history, family, time and personal identity. It is an honour to feature Lee’s work on the cover of our Australia’s China Knowledge Capability report.

With a multi-disciplinary practice that incorporates installation, sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking and public art, Lindy Lee has received widespread recognition both nationally and internationally. Lee’s sculptures stand in prominent public spaces such as on the forecourt of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), in Brisbane and in Sydney’s Chinatown.

Report design

Australia's China Knowledge Capability Report front cover
The report features Lindy Lee’s artworks shaped into tangrams.

Readers of our Australia’s China Knowledge Capability report will see hits of Lee’s artwork through tangram windows as they flick through the pages.

A tangram is a puzzle with a deep history in Chinese mathematics, social interactions and pop culture. It’s made up of seven simple pieces that can create be formed into countless shapes. While tangrams can be traced back to the third-century Chinese Mathematician Lui Hui who used it to explain Pythagoras’ Theorem, it was popularised globally in the 1800’s by an unknown Chinese person under the pseudonym Yang-Cho-Chu-Shih (or “dimwitted recluse”).

Paired with Lee’s artwork, the tangram in the report design symbolises the rich and deep history of China.

Featured works

The featured artworks include Ice meets rain meets ink 2017 and pieces from a group exhibition Marking Time at the MCA in 2012.

Installation view of Lindy Lee's Marking Time artwork. Image courtesy of the artist and MCA. Photograph: Alex Davies
Installation view of Lindy Lee’s Marking Time artwork. Image courtesy of the artist and MCA. Photograph: Alex Davies

About Lindy Lee

Artist and Fellow Lindy Lee at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney with her work Secret World of a Starlight Ember.

Born in Brisbane in 1954, Lindy Lee trained at Kelvin Grove Teachers College in Brisbane, the Chelsea School of Art, London, the Sydney College of the Arts and graduated with a PhD from UNSW.

Lecturing for over two decades at the Sydney College of the Arts, Lee has also been active in supporting the arts in Australia through service to numerous organisations including serving as a trustee to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, founding member of Gallery 4A in Sydney’s Chinatown, board member of Artspace and Australian Centre of Photography and deputy chair of the Visual Arts and Craft Fund of the Australia Council.

The Australian Academy of Humanities welcomed Lee into the fellowship in 2022.

 

About the report

The Australia’s China Knowledge Capability report explores how Australia can best support its national interests by getting to know China better.

Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian Academy of the Humanities recognises Australia’s First Nations Peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this land, and their continuous connection to country, community and culture.