National Gallery of Australia
The Illumination
100 Flowers Falling by Lindy Lee
The National Gallery has commissioned a new projection and sound-based work by Lindy Lee to illuminate the building’s exterior for the 2025 Enlighten Festival – 100 Flowers Falling.
100 Flowers Falling, brings to life an ancient Zen story about embracing our own humanity in all its complexity.
Ch’ien was a young woman who experiences a fundamental split in her life: at once a dutiful daughter to her father, as well as an independent spirit who yearns deeply for a different life. For many years, Ch’ien lives a dual existence, but eventually the two sides of Ch’ien’s being meet. The narrative itself is a question: which one is the ‘true’ Ch’ien?
Lee’s work will explore the ideas of deep time and universal connections that link all of existence, spanning the vastness of cosmos and the intimacy of individual lives.
In Lee’s words: ‘Cosmos is the length, depth and breadth of everything that has ever existed, exists right now and will exist into the future. It is an intrinsic part of us, and we, to it. To exist separately from this cosmic fabric is a notion as elusive as it is impossible.’
Cosmos, colour and ancient Chinese imagery will converge across the National Gallery in an interplay that celebrates both the transience and potency of our individual histories, and their connection to a greater whole. As Lee explains, it is a story about ‘embracing the 10, 000 things inside of you’.
The Artist
Lindy Lee was born in 1954 in Meanjin/Brisbane. Her grandparents and parents emigrated to Australia from China’s Guangdong province, and this cultural heritage was to have a profound impact on her art. Lee initially studied to be a high school teacher, graduating from Kelvin Grove College of Advanced Education in 1975. She later travelled to Europe where her encounters with art and museums inspired her to pursue a career as an artist. Lee studied fine arts at Chelsea College of Arts in London (1980) and later at Sydney College of the Arts (1984). She now lives and works in the Byron Bay hinterland in New South Wales.
Consistent influences on Lee’s practice include Taoism and Zen Buddhism. A practising Buddhist since the early 1990s, Lee says that ‘Zen practice directs me to something fundamental about being, which is that we are constantly in flux and change’. This sense of transition, malleability and impermanence is reflected in her contemporary work, in which delicate perforations are singed into metal and paper. Her spirituality also informs her recent work in sculpture in which free-formed bronze fragments are arranged into harmonious compositions.
The Night Shift at The National Gallery
Open late on Friday and Saturday evenings, discover The Night Shift at The National Gallery.
Explore all exhibitions free of charge and experience Lindy Lee’s 2025 commission, ‘100 Flowers Falling’ from 8pm.
Sponsors
