Vernon Ah Kee facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Vernon Ah Kee
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| Born | 1967 (age 58) Innisfail, Queensland, Australia
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| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | Queensland College of Art |
| Known for | Painting, text art, installation art, mixed media |
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Notable work
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Tall Man |
| Movement | Urban Indigenous art |
| Awards | 2012 Finalist, Archibald Prize 2012 Visual Artist of the Year, Deadly Awards 2014 Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2018 Australia Council Visual Arts Fellowship |
Vernon Ah Kee (born in 1967) is a modern Australian artist. He is also a political activist and helped start a group called ProppaNOW. Vernon Ah Kee lives mainly in Brisbane, Queensland.
He is an Aboriginal Australian man. His family links are to the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji, and Gugu Yimithirr peoples in Queensland. His art often explores his Aboriginal Australian identity. It looks at his place in modern Australia. He focuses on themes like skin color, race, and racism.
Ah Kee has shown his art in many galleries across Australia. These include the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. He has also shown his work around the world. He represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2015 Istanbul Biennial.
Vernon Ah Kee uses many different art forms. These include painting, installations, photography, and text-based art. He is well-known for changing colonial language and images. He uses them to show racial issues in Australia. His artworks are kept in public and private collections worldwide.
In 2003, Ah Kee and other Indigenous Australian artists formed ProppaNOW. These artists were Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd, and Joshua Herd. ProppaNOW helps urban Indigenous artists in Brisbane. It also works to fight cultural stereotypes.
Contents
About Vernon Ah Kee
Early Life and School
Vernon Ah Kee was born in Innisfail, Queensland, in 1967. His parents, Merv and Margaret Ah Kee, worked for Indigenous rights. Like most Indigenous people in Australia, his family was not counted in the population census until 1971.
He also has some Chinese family from his great-grandfather. But Ah Kee feels more connected to his Indigenous background. He said, "I think of myself as a Rainforest Aboriginal, a Buma."
His family moved to Cairns when he was 12. He loved to sketch a lot during this time. He went to Catholic schools. In Cairns, he attended St Augustine's College.
After high school, Ah Kee went to Cairns TAFE. There he learned screen printing. In 1996, he started studying Visual Art at Queensland College of Art in Brisbane. He focused on modern Indigenous Australian art. He finished his degree in 1998. He then continued his studies in fine art from 1999 to 2007. During this time, he had two solo shows at his college's gallery. These were whitefella normal blackfella me in 2000 and con Text in 2007.
In 2014, his father passed away in a car accident. In 2017, Ah Kee drew Portrait of My Father. He called this work a "labour of love." Ah Kee had a heart attack in 2016. But he recovered in time for his 2017 art show, Not an animal or a plant.
Art and Themes
Vernon Ah Kee uses many different art forms. These range from life drawings to video installations. A main idea in all his art is exploring racism in Australia. Ah Kee says many artists have influenced him. Especially other Indigenous artists like Kevin Gilbert and Richard Bell. He feels he can "see my own life and history" in their art.
Artists like Bell and Bennett inspired him to try new things. They used colonial text and images in their work. This led Ah Kee to experiment beyond drawing. Text art is a common style among ProppaNOW artists. He also credits Malcolm X and James Baldwin. These African American activists inspired his art and activism. He also learned from Barbara Kruger's art, which was like propaganda.
Many of his text-based artworks are called "word art". They use colonial language but change it to create new meanings. For example, his 2003 work austracism plays on the word "ostracism". His 2009 work becauseitisbitter uses a poem by Stephen Crane. It shows an Indigenous experience of modern Australia. These black and white texts make people think about race in Australia. The word play makes the audience think deeper about the issues. The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia said his text art "points to prejudices and agendas embedded in Australian society and politics."
Ah Kee also uses drawing and painting to show the modern Indigenous experience. fantasies of the good (2004) is a series of 13 charcoal drawings. They show different members of Ah Kee's family. Each person is named. The drawings look like "mug-shots". This style refers to how some anthropologists in the 20th century documented Indigenous Australians. Those Indigenous people were often unnamed, just given numbers. Ah Kee wanted to show Australia's history of racism. He said, "These drawings and what they represent are my evidence."
His 2012 portrait, I see deadly people: Lex Wotton, shows a man named Lex Wotton. Ah Kee used bold paint strokes. Wotton was unfairly shown in the media after the Palm Island Riots. Ah Kee wanted Wotton to "look bold and brave" in his portrait. His 2012 exhibition Transforming Tindale showed large charcoal and crayon portraits. These were based on old photos taken by Norman Tindale. Some of Ah Kee's own relatives were in these photos.
Ah Kee has also created video installations. His most famous is Tall Man. It shows strong reflections on Australian racism. For Tall Man, Ah Kee and filmmaker Alex Barnes used footage from the Palm Island riots. These riots happened after an Indigenous man, Cameron Doomadgee, died in police custody. The artwork tells the story from an Indigenous point of view. The video played on four screens. It showed peaceful images of Palm Island next to the chaos of the riots. It ended with protesters holding signs with Christian messages. This was to show the unfairness of some white Australian Christians towards Indigenous peoples. In 2021, Tall Man was shown at Tate Modern in London.
His recent work, the island, is also a video installation. It highlights Australia's strict immigration system. It tells the story of an Afghan refugee couple. This shows that Ah Kee's work is not only about Indigenous Australian experiences.
ProppaNOW Group
Vernon Ah Kee is a founder of proppaNOW. He started it with Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd, and Joshua Herd. All of them are artists from Brisbane. Richard Bell once said, "Aboriginal art – its a white thing." He meant that white people controlled the art industry. Ah Kee agreed with this idea.
The ProppaNOW artists want to challenge the idea that only Indigenous people from remote areas are "true" Aboriginals. They want to show that urban Indigenous people are also important. They formed the group because a government agency seemed to focus more on rural Indigenous artists.
At a ProppaNOW exhibition in Canberra in 2007, Ah Kee showed his art You Deicide. A museum curator said the artwork's changed word "deicide" was a comment. It was about how Christian-based religions affected Aboriginal people. Changing colonial language is a common tactic used by ProppaNOW artists.
Dark + Disturbing
Dark + Disturbing is an art project started by Ah Kee. In August 2015, he put on an exhibition called Dark + Disturbing: Gordon Hookey for proppaNOW. It showed the work of Gordon Hookey, another artist from ProppaNOW. This exhibition was at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.
Media Features
In 2020, Vernon Ah Kee was one of six Indigenous artists featured in the ABC TV series This Place: Artist Series. This series is a partnership between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Gallery of Australia. It shares stories about Indigenous artists, their art, and their communities.
In 2010, Ah Kee was also in an ABC Arts documentary. It was called "Not A Willing Participant." It followed his exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
Images for kids
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Vernon Ah Kee
