Deutscher and Hackett

Lynching, 2011, suite of etchings on paper, image 51.0 x 33.5 cm, sheet 70.0 x 50.5 cm (each) in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

The following except is from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2013:

‘This suite of works forms part of Vernon Ah Kee’s ongoing critique of race and politics in Australia. In stark black and white, Ah Kee pairs delicately rendered portrait drawings with words alluding to the experience of being Aboriginal in Australia.

Ah Kee’s work has consistently addressed the subject of Aboriginal experience and identity within a culture of colonial racism. His work is a direct engagement between artist and viewer, concerned with Indigenous politics and culture. The title of some of the works, unwritten, suggests the invisibility of Indigenous identity in Australia. These faces, which emerge from a web of lines respond to that history by coming into being with a palpable sense of energy and presence. They appear to push out from the paper and the network of lines that enmesh them to be seen and noticed, while the words alongside them demand to be heard.

Ah Kee’s word play points 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, such as the governmental control of Aboriginal lives enacted in the Northern Territory’s National Response in 2007, commonly known as ‘the intervention’. Creating a confronting tension between word and image, these works encourage the viewer to re-examine their own perspectives on race-related issues.’