Vernon Ah Kee

Vernon Ah Kee (born 1967) is a contemporary Australian artist, political activist and founding member of ProppaNOW. Based primarily in Brisbane, Queensland, Ah Kee is an Aboriginal Australian man with ties to the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples in Queensland. His art practice typically focuses on his Aboriginal Australian identity and place within a modern Australian framework, and is concerned with themes of skin, skin colour, race, privilege and racism. Ah Kee has exhibited his art at numerous galleries across Australia, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and has also exhibited internationally, most notably representing Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2015 Istanbul Biennial.

Ah Kee has a very diverse art practice, using a broad range of techniques and media such as painting, installation, photography and text-based art. He is particularly renowned for his manipulation of colonial language and imagery to highlight racial issues in Australia. His works are hosted in both public and private collections around the world.

In 2003, Ah Kee, along with other Indigenous Australian artists Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd and Joshua Herd, created ProppaNOW – an organisation dedicated to supporting urban Indigenous artists in Brisbane and combating cultural stereotypes.

Personal life and education

Ah Kee was born in Innisfail, Queensland, in 1967 to Merv and Margaret Ah Kee, who were Indigenous rights activists. As well as his Aboriginal heritage, he also has some Chinese ancestry from his great-grandfather, but Ah Kee has stated that he identifies more with his Indigenous heritage, saying "I think of myself as a Rainforest Aboriginal, a Buma".

His family moved to Cairns when he was 12 years old, ).

After attending Cairns TAFE where he learned screen printing,

Ah Kee suffered a heart attack in 2016 but managed to recover in time for his 2017 exhibition Not an animal or a plant.

Career

Art practice While Ah Kee incorporates a broad range of different art mediums, from life drawings to video installations, a consistent theme across all of his artworks is his examination of racism in Australia. Ah Kee has said that his art practice has been influenced by a wide range of artists and styles, but most significantly by other Indigenous artists such as Kevin Gilbert, Trevor Nickolls, Richard Bell and Gordon Bennett, stating that "I can see my own life and history" in their artworks. In particular, Bell and Bennett's manipulation of colonial text and images encouraged him to broaden his art practice and experiment with media beyond drawing - the text art, in particular, is a common technique among ProppaNOW artists. He also credits the politics of Malcolm X and James Baldwin, two prominent African American activists, as early inspirations for both his art practice and personal activism, as well as Barbara Kruger's propaganda-inspired art.

Many of his text-based artworks ("word art") contain colonial language that have been manipulated and rewritten to create a secondary meaning, such as his 2003 austracism being a play on the word "ostracism", and 2009 becauseitisbitter appropriating a poem from American poet Stephen Crane to portray an Indigenous experience of contemporary Australia. It has been suggested that the black and white text introduces the concept of racial relations in Australia The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia described his text-based art as "...point[ing] to prejudices and agendas embedded in Australian society and politics. These puns and words-within-words fuse the history and language of colonisation with contemporary experiences and issues".

Ah Kee has also engaged with drawing and painting mediums to highlight the modern Indigenous experience. fantasies of the good (2004) is a series of 13 detailed charcoal life drawings of different members of Ah Kee's family, who are all identified by name. The series uses a mug-shot style and is suggested to reference the documentation of Indigenous Australians by some anthropologists in the twentieth century; the Indigenous people who were documented were unnamed and the works were rather referred to by numbers. Ah Kee wanted to convey Australia's history of racism and has stated that "These drawings and what they represent are my evidence". His 2012 portrait, I see deadly people: Lex Wotton, depicted the titular man through bold paint strokes. was based on that library's collection of anthropological photographs taken by Norman Tindale, and included some of Ah Kee's relatives. The installation played across four screens and juxtaposed a peaceful representation of Palm Island with the chaos of the riots, concluding with footage of protesters holding up signs with Christian-related statements such as "Thou shalt not covet the land no more". Maura Reilly suggests this was to reference the hypocrisy of white Australian Christians in their treatment of Indigenous peoples.

His recent work, the island, also features a video installation, in which Ah Kee highlights Australia's 'brutal' immigration system through the recounting of an Afghan refugee couple's story, rather than wholly focusing on the experiences of Indigenous Australians.

proppaNOW

Along with Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd and Joshua Herd, all artists based in Brisbane, Ah Kee is a founding member of proppaNOW. a sentiment echoed by Ah Kee. In August 2015, he mounted the exhibition Dark + Disturbing: Gordon Hookey for proppaNOW at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, featuring the work of fellow collaborator in proppaNow, Gordon Hookey.

Reception

Reviews and criticisms of his art Ah Kee has generally received positive reviews of his art, often being praised for his clever reinventions of colonial language to highlight racism in Australia and noted for the dual personal and political nature of his art. His Tall Man exhibition, a video and text installation of the Palm Island Riots, was called a "smartly composed yet painful examination of racial relations in Australia" by Art Asia Pacific Magazine.

Art critic and broadcaster Andrew Frost reviewed some of Ah Kee's works at the Sydney Festival and quotes the artist: "this is not history, this is my life" and "this is not political, it's personal". Frost gave particular praise for the artist's charcoal drawings of his family, the form referencing the documentation of Indigenous peoples by 20th century anthropologists, finding that Ah Kee was personalising a traditionally impersonal genre.

When Ah Kee was awarded the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize, one of the judges, National Art School curator Judith Blackall, also noted the dual political and personal nature of Ah Kee's work and how it impacts the audience. In regard to his portrait of Lex Wotton, she stated that “Vernon’s masterful drawing technique of charcoal and acrylic paint on canvas goes from strength to strength. This portrait is particularly powerful as it shows Lex Wotton – who the artist knows well as he is married to Vernon’s cousin – in profile, with an intense gaze. Importantly, the story behind the portrait is of great significance, both personally for the artist and politically for Australia".

Awards In 2012, Ah Kee was a finalist for the Art Gallery of New South Wales' Archibald Prize with his portrait I see deadly people: Lex Wotton. Wootton man is Ah Kee's cousin-in-law and was a key figure in the Palm Island Riots of 2004. In the same year, Ah Kee was also awarded Visual Artist of the Year in the Deadly Awards, the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment & Community Awards.

In 2014, the Redlands Konika Minolta established artist prize was awarded to Ah Kee for his charcoal rendition of Lex Wotton.

Media In 2020 Ah Kee featured as one of six Indigenous artists in the ABC TV series This Place: Artist Series. The series is a partnership between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Gallery of Australia, in which the producers travelled to the countries of "some of Australia's greatest Indigenous artists to share stories about their work, their country, and their communities".

In 2010 Ah Kee was also featured in the ABC Arts documentary "Not A Willing Participant" directed by Alex Barnes and Produced by Justin Morrissey, which followed his exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Exhibitions , Ah Kee had displayed his art at 30 solo exhibitions and 100 group exhibitions, all around the world. He continues to create and exhibit his art in 2020, Istanbul Turkey GOMA Q Group Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane Australia Imaginary Accord Group Institute of Modern Art Brisbane Australia Blackout Group Sydney College of the Arts Sydney Australia See You at the Barricades Group Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney Australia

Sugar Spin: You, me, art and everything Group Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane Australia Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Group Harvard Art Museums Cambridge, Massachusetts USA With Secrecy and Despatch Group Campbelltown Arts Centre Sydney Australia Frontier Imaginaries Group Institute of Modern Art and QUT Art Museum Brisbane Australia Black, White & Restive Group Newcastle Art Gallery Newcastle, NSW Australia Endless Circulation: Tarrawarra Biennial, Group TarraWarra Museum of Art TarraWarra, Victoria Australia Over the Fence Group UQ Art Museum Brisbane Australia On the Origin of Art Group Museum of Old and New Art Hobart, Tas. Australia Shut Up and Paint Group National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne Australia

Ode Solo Milani Gallery Brisbane Australia Will I Live Solo Apartment der Kunst Munich Germany Not a plant or an animal Solo National Art School Gallery Sydney Australia A Change Is Gonna Come Group National Museum of Australia Canberra Australia Australian Collection Group Permanent Hang, Queensland Art Gallery Brisbane Australia BOARD: Surf and Skate Cultures Meet Contemporary Art Group Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery Lake Macquarie, NSW Australia

Boundary Lines Group Griffith University Art Museum Brisbane Australia 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds Group Art Gallery of South Australia Adelaide Australia Riots: Slow Cancellation of the Future Group ifa-Galerie Berlin Germany Playback, Dobell Group Australian Drawing Biennial, Art Gallery of NSW Sydney Australia Hunter Red: Corpus Group Newcastle Gallery Newcastle, NSW Australia

Shadow Light Group Milani Gallery Brisbane Australia cantchant Group Art Gallery of Alberta Alberta Canada Body Language Group National Gallery of Australia Canberra Australia I, Object Group Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane Australia Hope Dies Last: Art at the End of Optimism, Group Gertrude Contemporary Melbourne Australia Australia. Antipodean Stories Group Padiglione D'Arte Contemporanea Milano Milan Italy 2020 The Island Solo Campbelltown Arts Centre Sydney Australia

In 2010 Vernon Ah Kee was interviewed in a digital story and oral history for the State Library of Queensland's James C Sourris AM Collection. In the interview Ah Kee talks to journalist Daniel Browning about his art, his family, the artist group proppaNOW, and being an Aboriginal artist.