Solomon Kammer wins The Creative Australia National Arts and Disability Award

22 Nov 2023

Congratulations to Solomon Kammer for winning The Creative Australia National Arts and Disability Award in the Early Career category! This award recognises an Australian artist in the first ten years of their practice who has made an outstanding contribution to their chosen field of practice.

Kammer (she/they) (b. 1991, Australia) is a Tarndanya/Adelaide-based emerging visual artist who draws on their own experiences with chronic illness, living with disability, and gender biases to expose prejudices and abuses still prevalent in today’s medical complex. Kammer’s confronting yet tender portraits deploy art as a form of protest and advocacy, examining culturally embedded notions of ‘womanhood’, well-being, value, and the way that bodies are seen and fought over. Embedded throughout Kammer’s practice is their identity as a person diagnosed with disabilities, including autism, endometriosis and comorbid adenomyosis. Kammer shares a rare and stark vision of bodies ordinarily marginalised and rendered invisible, championing those living with disability, illness, and trauma.

The Awards acknowledge the contribution d/Deaf artists and artists with disability have made to the creative arts and cultural life of the nation and are decided by the Australia Council Board (the governing Board of Creative Australia), informed by key industry advisors.

Image: Solomon Kammer with her work Perpetuity, Ramsay Art Prize 2021, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Photographed by Nat Rogers