Ancestry with dignity: eyes have it in Vernon Ah Kee’s portraits

In 2004 Brisbane artist Vernon Ah Kee started a portrait series of members of his extended family.

In 2004 Brisbane artist Vernon Ah Kee started a portrait series of members of his extended family and has since produced more than 40 large, finely detailed charcoal drawings.

The portraits are held in major public galleries and in private hands, and are part of a series that Ah Kee says may eventually involve up to 100 individual likenesses.

It’s not only an epic of patient draughtsmanship but Ah Kee’s attempt to depict with humanity and dignity his Aboriginal forebears, who in earlier times were “not considered as completely human”.

Ah Kee referred to the 1930s work of anthropologist Norman Tindale, whose study of Aboriginal populations involved building an archive of photographs and genealogical information, including at Palm Island where Ah Kee’s maternal family lived.

“He was loathed in many communities and families because he was basically taking advantage, often in the cruellest ways, of powerless people,” Ah Kee said.

“My large-scale portrait drawings are meant to (illustrate) an idea of the Aborigine that is in opposition to that scientific idea.”

Ah Kee is today named as one of eight recipients of an Australia Council fellowship: an $80,000, two-year grant for creative activity and professional development.

Other recipients are writer Ali Cobby Eckermann, festival director Jacob Boehme, community arts producer Paula Abood, choreographer Joanna Lloyd, composer Katy Abbott and performance artists Nicola Gunn and Jude Anderson.