Male Aboriginal Artist

Biography

• Born in1967, Innisfail, Queensland.

• Part of the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gurgu Yimithirr peoples.

• Holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Queensland College of Art.

• He has held a number of public exhibitions both as a part of a group and an individual, and has his work in various collections around Australia and the world.

• His Chinese name is the legacy of his paternal great-grandfather – his family knows little about that side of their history.

• He currently lives and works in Queensland.

Vernon Ah Kee’s Cultural Background & Practice( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdIcl99hKx4)

Ah Kee’s Art Practice

• At the core of Vernon Ah Kee‘s practice is a constant and provocative investigation of race, colour and politics.

• Ah Kee‘s intention is to reference past racial atrocities and the way they resonate and reverberate in the present.

• Ah Kee has two dominant strands to his material practice –monumentally scaled pencil portraits of his family members who gaze defiantly at the viewer, and text-based works – slogans which are beautiful, pithy and poetic, while hitting hard.

• Sardonic, satirical and wry humour, biting and black, aerates the slogans.

• He is also now creating hard-hitting text-based video works and installations that have incorporated surfboards cast as ceremonial shields, and most recently paintings.

Ah Kee’s Art Practice

• Ah Kee‘s artistic practice is informed and produced within the urban context from Aboriginal experience of contemporary life.

• His work explores Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous culture in contemporary society.

• Vernon Ah Kee creates work dealing with issues facing Australian Indigenous culture in a post-colonial society.

• His art is primarily a critique of Australian popular culture, specifically the Black/White divide.

Use of Text• Ah Kee held his first solo show, If I Was

White at Metro Arts in 1999.

• Ah Kee began his practice with his text works, informed by his interest in the text art of Barbara Kruger and the radical feminist Guerrilla Girls that first piqued his interest in the use of typography, as well as text as used in advertising imagery.

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• These works use the direct effect of text whilst creating abstract shapes through a play with kerning and positioning.

• Ah Kee states, "Text is immediate. If there's something you want to say - write it‖.

• (kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a word, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result.)

If I was white (2002). Inkjet print on polystyrene board on polyvinyl chloride (238 x 137cm). Edition 1/5.

The ‘gaze’.• In 2008 Vernon Ah Kee exhibited in

the Biennale of Sydney a series of 12 charcoal and mixed media drawings on canvas that continued his series of portraits of his family.

• The focus of each subject is their gaze - the way they look back at the viewer. This is designed to cause the viewer to feel a sense of discomfort, as the confrontational act of the stare is strongly felt.

• As previously, the drawings are a response to the anthropological romanticised historical portraits of Aboriginals and effectively reposition the Aboriginal in Australia from something that is in a museum to modern day people living real and contemporary lives. George Sibley (2008). Charcoal, crayon

and acrylic on canvas (180 x 240cm).

Eddie Ah Kee (2008). Charcoal, crayon and acrylic on canvas (180 x 240 cm).

Next week…

We will be looking at some of his artworks and series.

Vernon Ah Kee is the second artist that you must use in your Cultural Warriors Essay, and therefore, just like with Fiona Foley, we will be selecting three artworks from the works discussed next week to look at during Week 6 to help you write your essay.

Remember, your draft is due Week 6 - try to have a full document ready to send me, and I can provide you with feedback and assistance!