buddhism and the art of tim johnson, lindy lee and peter tyndall
Reflective of the increased Western interest in Eastern philosophies and religions, Buddhism has become one of the most rapidly growing religions in Australia. In this exhibition, Australian artists Tim Johnson, Lindy Lee and Peter Tyndall use their talents to present a local interpretation of Buddhist thought, until recently a leitmotif of the Asian Other.
To link the artists' works, exhibition curator Linda Michael has focused on the Buddhist concept of 'Emptiness' or Sunyata. Unlike the negative connotations this concept often carries in Western contexts, 'Emptiness' in a Buddhist milieu connotes a space rich in possibility and spiritual liberation. As Michael explains, the concept emerges from an understanding that, ' ... all entities are part of an ever-changing causal chain of growth and decay. All things emerge as "dependent arisings" from a matrix of conditions, in turn becoming part of another momentary cluster of causes and effects and so on to infinity. All dharmas (every mental and physical entity, even the Buddha) are interconnected and therefore without essence .. . Emptiness is thus the unbroken ground of being that is egoless, conceptless and unobjectifiable ... Things exist, yet without endurance or inherent substance.'[1]
For Johnson, Lee and Tyndall, the concept of 'Emptiness' offers a liberating paradigm within which to develop their art. For all three artists, the conceptual art movement of the 1960s marks a formative stage in their art practice. All three began their careers within an environment of critical engagement with established artistic norms, particularly the inherited concept of the nexus between artistic originality and self-expression. This process of questioning the integrity of 'the original' or 'authentic' work of art and the related idea of the primacy