Home

Valerie Keenan is an accomplished artist based in the Cassowary Coast region of North Queensland.

In 2019, Valerie was awarded the prestigious Vida Lahey Memorial Travelling Scholarship, which allowed her to travel to Norway Her research focused on the work of Norwegian naturalist Carl Lumholtz, who lived with Indigenous communities in Far North Queensland in the 1880s. Through this scholarship, she explored Lumholtz’s pictorial imagery and its impact on how Indigenous Australians were viewed in the 19th century, as well as its effect on their contemporary descendants​. This project resulted in an exhibition and non-fiction publication titled: Drawing YOU in – Carl Lumholtz in the Herbert launched at Tyto Gallery in Ingham in 2023. The exhibition will travel to Norway in 2025.