Australia’s most expensive public artwork has been unveiled at the NGA

A $14 million, 13-tonne and four-metre-high sculpture by Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee has officially been unveiled in Canberra at the National Gallery of Australia.

Australia’s most expensive public artwork, Ouroboros is an immersive sculpture based on the ancient image of a snake eating its own tail. Located in the Gallery’s National Sculpture Garden, the sculpture is Lee’s most complex and ambitious work to date and a major addition to the national collection.

Commissioned for the NGA’s 40^th anniversary in 2022, it took three years to manufacture, with over 200 public art specialists working over 60,000 hours to bring Lee’s vision to life. Fabricated at the Urban Art Projects in Brisbane from recycled world-class materials sourced entirely within Australia, Ouroboros is one of our country’s first sustainable works of public art.

Surrounded by a 250-square metre pond, visitors are guided into the ‘mouth’ of the sculpture with a walkway. During the day, you’ll see how its mirrored surface reflects the imagery of the floating world, through the people wandering by, cars, birds in flight and passing clouds. By night, it illuminates, beaming light back to the world through 45,000 perforations in its highly polished steel frame, creating an effect of delicacy and transcendence.

The Ouroboros is an image seen across cultures and millennia, and is a symbol of eternal return, cycles of birth and death and renewal, common themes you’ll find throughout Lee’s 40-year artistic career.

“I am elated to invite everyone to experience Ouroboros, which I hope becomes a beacon for visitors to the National Gallery. This work is about the cosmos – the open sky that we all belong to – and when you enter Ouroboros, I want you to feel something – a deep connection to something which is much larger than any of us as individuals. I am eternally grateful to every single person who helped me bring what was just an idea in my head, to life,” says Lee.

To complement Ouroboros, you can see more of Lee’s work in her free exhibition Lindy Lee, which is now on display at the NGA until June 2025.

“The National Gallery is honoured to finally unveil Lindy Lee’s Ouroboros, her most ambitious public sculpture and a significant addition to the national collection. Enabling leading Australian artists to create works of ambition and elevating Australian art is an important priority for the National Gallery. Lee was asked to be ambitious in her vision for this project and she has exceeded our expectations with Ouroboros. We are excited to present a work that reinvigorates the National Sculpture Garden and that feels emblematic of the times,” says National Gallery Director, Dr Nick Mitzevich.

Ouroboros and Lindy Lee are a part of the Gallery’s Know My Name projects, an initiative celebrating the work of all women artists. Ouroboros also signals the beginning of the National Sculpture Garden revitalisation project.

Visit the National Gallery of Australia’s website for the latest info.