Vernon Ah Kee

Vernon Ah Kee, born in 1967 in Innisfail, Queensland, is a renowned Australian contemporary artist and activist of Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji, and Gugu Yimithirr heritage. His work spans drawing, painting, text-based art, photography, video, and installation, critically examining race, identity, and Australia's colonial history.

Ah Kee's striking charcoal portraits of family members challenge stereotypes, while his conceptual text pieces confront racism and privilege. A co-founder of the Indigenous artist collective ProppaNOW, Ah Kee advocates for urban Aboriginal artists and reshapes perceptions of Indigenous identity. ProppaNOW won the prestigious 2022-24 Jane Lombard Prize for Arts and Social Justice.

His art has been showcased at major international exhibitions, including the Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, and Istanbul Biennial. His powerful video work tall man, featuring footage from the 2004 Palm Island riots, is jointly held by the Tate, London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Ah Kee's work boldly addresses political issues such as immigration, Indigenous incarceration, and systemic racism. His legacy is one of resilience and a relentless commitment to amplifying Indigenous perspectives on Australia's past and present.

Clancy McDowell

Clancy McDowell is the Executive Officer of the Kimberley Arts Network (KAN) in Western Australia. She relocated from Sydney to the Kimberley over two decades ago, bringing with her a background in fine arts and film.  

Over the years, she has worked with media, arts and community organisations, including Goolarri Media, the ABC, and Traditional Owner groups.  As a consultant she has worked with the Broome Fringe Festival, local governments, schools and other organisations on innovative community-focussed projects that use arts and creativity to inspire community expression and social cohesion.   

Clancy has driven the growth of the Kimberley Arts Network and currently sits on the Board of Regional Arts WA. She has sat on other boards including Theatre Kimberley and Broome Primary School, and is deeply engaged with her local community in the West Kimberley.  Clancy has her own practice of hand stitching and contemporary sashiko, working with unique Japanese, hand-printed, upcycled, or vintage fabrics.

Philip Thompson

Philip Thompson is a freelance photographer based in Broome, Western Australia, specializing in fashion, intimate lifestyle scenes, portraits, creative shoots, events, and remote location photography. Operating under the moniker "Boyfrombeyond Photography," he has established himself as one of Broome's premier photographers.

He was the winner of The Kimberley Arts Network People's Choice Award 2024, winner of Incredible Edible mixed media People's Choice Award Broome, his work has featured in several international travel magazines and on billboards at Broome International Airport and he recently worked with Tourism WA and Australia's North West on promotional videography projects.

He continues to shoot regularly at local cultural events such as a Taste of Broome, Cinefest, Blak Pride, Survival Day, Fringe Festival where his photography style is a blend of photojournalism and storytelling.

For more information or to view his portfolio, you can visit his social media profiles at Boyfrombeyond Photography on instagram or Facebook.

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Benjamin Loaring

Benjamin creates artworks that express a viewpoint of Social issues, historical narratives and concepts related to West Australian and wider Australian context through his art processes of sculpture, painting, photography and installation he materialises his own understandings of the world.

Loaring has works held in the public collection of the Shire of Derby West Kimberley, the Elizabeth and Lloyd Horn Collection and numerous private collections throughout Australia and internationally.

His accolades include two time winner of the acquisitive Kimberley Art and Photography Prize 2016 & 2019; View to Asia Outdoor Sculpture Prize, Broome winner 2019 and 3rd place 2018; Sculpture Award Shinju Matsuri Art Prize, Broome winner 2018 & 2015; Shinju Matsuri Art Prize winner of painting category, Broome, 2011; Highly Commended Award winner at the Shinju Matsuri 2014.

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Pearl Proud

Pearl was born in Durban, South Africa and migrated to Australia in 1987. She is a Zulu Traditional Healer, with a background in Psychology, Governance, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Pearl has held a range of board positions and overseen the inception and strategic evolution of boards with a footprint in the Arts, Health, Mental Health, and Tertiary sectors; and has held clinical and management positions in private practice, government, non-for-profit, social services, and corporate sectors.

Pearl has a commitment to actively contribute to the civic, social, cultural, and artistic life in Western Australia, she was Patron for the Perth Arts Festival, including for the 50th Anniversary Perth Festival, the Founding Patron for the Perth Writers Festival, and a Medici Donor. Pearl is passionate about the Arts, is an advocate for diversity in the Arts, champions First Nations and Intercultural artistic expression, and believes in the First Nations First principle in the framing of our cultural dialogue. Her civic and philanthropic contribution acknowledgements include the national Living Legend Award 2012.

Fiona Gavino

Fiona of Australian, Filipino, and Māori heritage, has been described as an intercultural artist working the traditional into the contemporary. Gavino graduated from Charles Darwin University with a BA Visual Arts in 2006 and was a practicing artist there for 12 years.  Her work features in Hot Springs; the Northern Territory & Contemporary Australian Artists (Macmillan Art Publishing), in 2007 she relocated to Western Australia and currently lives and works in Fremantle. In 2014 Gavino was a recipient of an Asialink Residency and was invited to return the following year to exhibit at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines with a solo show, In-between-spaces. Recently Gavino marked 25 years of practice with her critically celebrated exhibition Making Ground Breaking Ground.

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