REVIEW: Lindy Lee @ The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
Currently on display at the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, is the first major survey of Australian artist Lindy Lee. Rather than presenting a comprehensive chronological retrospective, the exhibition—curated by Michele Helmrich—intersperses 48 works from three chapters of the artist’s practice: her early photocopy art from the 1980s; her works centered around her Chinese heritage and the notion of family; and her later works that stem from her devotion to Buddhism and Zen. Helmrich’s selection offers cross sections and vignettes that reveal currents of continuity throughout. At the base of the exhibition is a profound sense of darkness that is at the heart of all of Lee’s work. The exhibition title, “The Dark of Absolute Freedom,” is taken from a quote by abstract painter Ad Reinhardt (1913–67), but is also based on Taoist origins, and it questions the notion of the absolute in regards to our existence.
