Sutton Gallery is pleased to present The Tyranny and Liberation of Distance, a solo exhibition by prominent Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee. Drawing on issues of migration, identity and diaspora, Lee honours the reality of the migrant experience, chiefly of her own Chinese-Australian story.

Over this past year the artist has collaborated with the locals of Avoca in rural Victoria to build The Garden of Fire and Water, a Chinese garden that remembers the migrant history of this former gold rush town (1) , as well as a major public work The New Century Garden to revitalise Sydney’s Chinatown and a major public art commission in China. Projects such as these have prompted Lee to review her own experience and that of immigrants to this country. As part of this project Lee created a pagoda that incorporates elements of the Australian shed with burnt wooden columns and silver flames running across the roof; a poignant nod to both cultures.

Twisting the known Geoffrey Blainey title ‘Tyranny of distance’ into her own truism, in The Tyranny and Liberation of Distance at Sutton Gallery, Lee dispels delusions and preconceived ideas of the migrant experience and focuses on the ‘force of nature’ between cultures, which creates new cultures. The exhibition features magnificent storyboards on metal of family portraits and traditional Chinese landscapes, with Lee’s ritualistic burn holes. In burning through personal and historical imagery, Lee penetrates the veiled realities and liberates the lived experience.  This exhibition celebrates the explosion between cultures; the reality of what was left behind and the means to create a new life.