A woman marches along, repeating “My name is Kaylene Imantura Whiskey.” This is indeed the artist, Kaylene Whiskey. In the video, she and a group of friends jump in a Land Cruiser and set off into the desert to party. At times impersonating superstars like Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, and Whoopi Goldberg, the women sing and dance with the likes of Catwoman and Wondergirl, celebrating to some upbeat beats the joy of living in this place, female friendship, and the infinite nature of love, in what can only be described as a paean to life.

Whiskey is an Australian Aboriginal Yankunytjatjara woman, part of the Anangu people, from whose elders she has inherited unique knowledge. At the same time, the globalized western culture of music videos and Coca-Cola have also been a familiar feature of her life since childhood. Thus Whiskey takes both her ancient Indigenous culture passed down through the generations, and consumer culture with its capitalist glitz and glam, and mixes them to make her works.

For example, many of the celebrities she adores appear in both her videos and paintings, but always in a state of symbiosis with Whiskey and her friends, and with wild flora and fauna, in the paintings even assiduously cultivating mingkulpa (a tobacco plant that grows in the desert).

Kaylene Whiskey lives in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, an area of Aboriginal owned and governed land in northwestern South Australia, and is based at Iwantja Arts, an art center supporting and promoting Indigenous arts and cultural activities. Her works have been shown not only in public art museums in Australia such as Sydneyʼs Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, but in Germany, the US and elsewhere. In 2018 she was awarded the historic Sir John Sulman Prize for Australian artists.

Selected Works & Awards

2022

Melbourne Art Foundation Commission, Australia

2022

Sydney Modern Project Commission, Australia

2020

Winner: Digital Art Prize, Heathcote Cultural Precinct, Melville, WA, Australia

2019

Winner: General Painting Award, Telstra NATSIAAs Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia

2018

Winner: Sir John Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• Ngura Pukulpa–Happy Place, 2022
• Strong Kungkas, 2019
• Photo: ToLoLo studio