Vernon Ah Kee
"Unwritten (108 Portrait #10)", 2019
Charcoal on canvas
24 x 24 inches (61 x 61 cm)
Courtesy the Artist and Milani Gallery
Photo by Carl Warner

Selected by Hoor Al Qasimi

Vernon Ah Kee’s conceptual text pieces, videos, photographs and drawings form a critique of contemporary culture from the perspective of an Aboriginal experience. As a leading figure in the global indigenous art movement, he explores the shared dichotomy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies and cultures. In particular, Ah Kee’s works respond to the history of the romantic, exoticized portraiture of ‘primitives’ to reposition the indigenous subject from an ‘othered thing’ anchored in museum and scientific records, to a contemporary people inhabiting contemporary and space and time.

Ah Kee is a descendant of the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidindji, Koko Berrin and Gugu Yimithirr peoples. Born 1967 in Innisfail, North Queensland, Australia he lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. Ah Kee’s work has been exhibited in a number of significant exhibitions.

In 2020 Ah Kee presented a major new work as part of his solo exhibition ‘The Island’ at Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney. His work is held in all major collections within Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, as well many internationally including the Tate, the National Gallery of Canada, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, The Hood Museum of Art, New Hampshire, Fondation Opale, Switzerland and the Castello Di Rivoli, Turin, Italy.