In addition to being a practicing visual artist, Vernon Ah Kee also has a history with t-shirts. When he finished school, he began his professional life as a screen printer in Cairns. He printed for t-shirt manufacturers and tourist shops, as well as for family and community events in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He eventually left Cairns for art school in Brisbane, but his love of t-shirts as a platform has remained.
As a tool of communication, t-shirts are relatively easy to produce, they’re durable and wearable. With a longer life-span than a poster, t-shirts have had a long history over the past 50 years of saying what needs to be said clearly and succinctly.
About the T-Shirts
They are hand printed by an independent screen-printer in the Northern Suburbs of Brisbane.