A solitary figure emerges from an urgent flurry of charcoal lines. Vernon Ah Kee’s “Unwritten” is a potent metaphor for the struggle of indigenous artists to control their identities amid the continuing pressures of racism and colonial oppression. In 2004, Ah Kee began a series of large scale photorealistic charcoal portraits of his family members. These works were based upon ethnographic photos taken by the anthropologist Norman Tyndale on Palm Island during the 1930s. In enlarging these images to an imposing scale, Ah Kee returns power to their gaze, reclaiming the ethnographic photography for those who are once its subjects.
Vernon Ah Kee
Indigenous Australian, b. 1967
Unwritten, 2011
Charcoal on paper, 29 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (76.04 x 56.04 cm)
Museum purchase from Milani Gallery, 2012
