Vernon Ah Kee
Vernon Ah Kee | Kuku Yalanji/Waanyi/Yidinyji/Guugu Yimithirr people | Australia b.1967 | Annie Ah Kee 2008 | Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas | The James C Sourris, AM, Collection. Proposed gift of James C Sourris, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011 | © The artist
Vernon Ah Kee | Annie Ah Sam (A) 2008 | Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas | The James C Sourris, AM, Collection. Proposed gift of James C Sourris, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011 | © The artist
Vernon Ah Kee | Bella Ami 2008 | Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas | The James C Sourris, AM, Collection. Proposed gift of James C Sourris, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011 | © The artist
Acquisitions of works by leading artists from each of the Gallery’s five contemporary collection areas are on display to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Gallery of Modern Art.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian Art Collection
Annie Ah Kee 2008
Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Annie Ah Sam (A) 2008
Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Bella Ami 2008
Charcoal, crayon and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
In recent years, Vernon Ah Kee has risen quickly to the forefront of urban-based conceptual art practice. His works look at family history and representation of Aboriginal people through a suite of large—scale drawings. Based on anthropological photographs of his antecedents held in museum collections, Ah Kee’s representations of his own family allow them to be viewed through Aboriginal eyes. Apart from re—examining anthropological photographs of family, Ah Kee conveys a sense of beauty in his large, lush portraits.
Here, important women of the artist’s family are featured: his maternal great-grandmother Annie Ah Sam, paternal great-grandmother Bella Ami and his daughter Annie Ah Kee. Ah Kee draws focus to their gazes — confronting each viewer as these Aboriginal women assert themselves as real people, as opposed to romantic beings. Ah Kee also concentrates on constructing beautiful, sumptuous images of his family, as Ah Kee has said: ‘My portraits are beautiful because I want the subject, Aboriginality, to be a beautiful thing.’
