A-lista Sista

Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whiskey is kungka kunpu (a strong woman) in charge of her own narrative: visible, centralised and powerful. Kaylene’s practice is an extension of who she is, the main character of her life in Indulkana, belonging to Anangu culture and proud of her identity. Her portraits of celebrities, superheroes, community and herself are self-determined visions of people and place that traverse local and global contexts.

Kaylene’s work typifies the potential of First Nations portraiture to explore identity from the perspective of lived experience. Grounded in the power of storytelling, Kaylene makes art to transform her ideas into visions and make sense of the worlds we navigate, in layered multiplicity. She serves femme champions in vibrant visual stories as reflections of her own outlook on life, while emphatically working in generosity. Kaylene’s portraits represent her, often on Country and within the contexts of her culture work, placed in unfolding moments across time. Then, she takes her locality a step further, to include the glittering world of celebrity, universal brands and a sprinkling of emoji-like symbolism for good measure. Kaylene is dancing in many worlds and invites us to join her.

Kaylene’s practice has expanded in scale and detail over time, allowing us to trace the stylistic evolution of her portraiture and subjects. We see the increasing complexity and density of her scenes – from head-and-shoulders portraits to large-scale group scenes inhabited by multiple figures, objects, animals and plants. Arguably, Kaylene’s work is a sustained engagement with portraiture, comprised of recurring characters, including the artist herself, alongside pop icons like Dolly Parton, Cher and Wonder Woman. In Kaylene’s scenes, international guest stars regularly drop by to visit her in Indulkana. Appearing alongside her co-stars, Kaylene is never eclipsed by them, so that we come to understand the artist as an A-lister sister, equal to the celebrities with whom she shares the stage.

When the curtains go up, we are transported to Kaylene’s world. Beyond the limits of likeness and into the internal universe we go – to witness everything that matters to the artist: culture, passions, hopes and dreams. This unique and personal outlook flows within Kaylene’s portraits, a mega mash-up under the broader identifiers of self: who we are, who we love, where we are, what we consume, our community, the past, the present … and how it all comes together in story.

By design, portraits are produced to capture human existence; elevating and immortalising people of importance. This assertion – I exist! – is highly political, a signifier of hierarchy and a record of who is valued within society. At Iwantja Arts Centre, Kaylene has worked alongside innovative peers who seek a fluid form of portraiture to assert their own existence, such as Vincent Namatjira, who presents his family line alongside royalty, prestige and power, and the late Kunmanara (Tiger) Yaltangki, who created a sustained series of self portraits to represent his community, music culture and mamu (spirit beings).

While Kaylene and Vincent push, resist and shape new forms for portraiture, it is imperative to note that historical representations of First Peoples are by and large determined by colonial perspectives. Within the lens of ‘other’, First Peoples have been subjects of study, aligned with unsafe anthropology practices. Kaylene’s works, on the flip side, are created with agency to reinforce visibility; a shift away from ‘other’ to a reclaiming of ‘me’. Art tools in hand, Kaylene shows and shares who she is, thriving in a world of her own making. To amplify the individual in a broader context, Kaylene asserts that ‘me’ makes sense as ‘we’, sharing currency and prioritising the collective; all-in-everyone-now. We are stronger in our togetherness. Kaylene knows this and encourages audiences to be empowered and motivated – conquering challenges, enjoying life, looking good, supporting each other and treasuring resources. As Kaylene says, ‘My art is for everyone. I want to share love, happiness, laughter and togetherness with everybody! Uwangkara tjungu, mulapa rikina! [Everyone together, looking so good!].’

This spirit of fun and togetherness is evident in Kaylene’s artmaking world, as seen in Rhett Hammerton’s portrait of the artist at Iwantja Arts Centre. Here, Kaylene choreographs her own image, knowingly striking a dance pose, on Country and in her creative sphere. This seek-and-find documentation of artist at work is speckled with clues: an exhausted bucket of magenta paint, three Aboriginal flags and a collection of leading ladies: a life-size Wonder Woman, Tina Turner, Olivia Newton-John, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, and the artist’s favourite, Dolly Parton. Images of these stars are sticky-taped to the wall like spiritual icons, on hand for reference with the added benefit of igniting the artist’s spirit – a cheer squad to keep the good studio energy flowing. Kaylene’s world view is expressed within her upbeat and all-encompassing practice. It would seem the Kaylene we meet in the studio is a living artwork; who she is as self and how it is expressed as art are in perfect synchronicity.

In the colour-popping National Portrait Gallery commission Dolly Flying to Iwantja (2022), a rockstar is defying gravity. Dolly strums her guitar in midair on the way to Kaylene’s hometown, a place overflowing with abundance. While Dolly has been afforded prime position as the focal point and hero, the world constructed in the composition belongs to Kaylene. Standing tall with pink hair and red lips, Kaylene is ready to host Dolly at her place, extending greetings as a representative of her people by proudly holding the Aboriginal flag to the sky, in a gesture that is as radical as it is joyful, and radical in its joyfulness. Side by side the duo share space again in Flying to New York (2022). In this dense and vibrant scene of exchange, Kaylene is off to visit her leading lady. A customised Qantas plane shoots across the sky, wrapped in hot pink tones and adorned with dots and a trailing flag projecting her name ‘KAYLENE’ into the sky. In this way, the work highlights the multiplicity of self: Kaylene’s belonging to her community in step with her place in global society. The inclusion of the recognisable visual language of the comic book, represented in her signature speech bubbles, brings action and self-led dialogue to Kaylene’s world. She asserts who she is, speaking on her own behalf and taking the lead with her sisters in an unfolding conversation.

Kaylene: ‘Me, Kaylene flying to New York meeting Dolly!’

Dolly: ‘I’m playing Kaylene’s best song “Coat of many colours!”’

The instances of Aboriginal English in Kaylene’s portraits bring visibility to the dialect, another identifier of self within culture. Spoken by over 80 per cent of First Nations Peoples in Australia, Aboriginal English is gaining awareness, despite a legacy of false classifications such as being labelled ‘broken’ or ‘incorrect’. Often the text in Kaylene’s works feature Pitjantjatjara language; for example, in Flying to New York, Tina Turner cheers on Wonder Woman to ‘stop the cheeky tjala [honey ants] from eating my good chocolate cake and sweeties!’ Kaylene steers her stories in her own voice, using a multitude of communication methodologies to express the happenings in her worlds.

An explosive power is evident when Kaylene merges Anangu culture work and Western pop culture together on a single pictorial plane, taking on the duality of her exposure to media and her connection to ancestral knowledges. This oscillation between worlds is evident in her recurrent interpretations of ancient stories, such as her telling of Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters Story). The artist casts contemporary superstars in the roles of the seven women from the story, making a very special cameo in a narrative spanning thousands of years of local legacy.

This power is amplified when Kaylene reclaims found surfaces as a way to co-opt colonial interventions towards people and place. In a rare solo self portrait, Kaylene on Country (2023), the artist repurposes a landscape photograph from a vintage tourism brochure, part of a lineage of glossy publications that intentionally omitted her Peoples from their pages. Kaylene places herself in the scene, with animals, insects, flowers and mingkulpa (bush tobacco). The textured impasto paint pulls up and out the micro details, welcome augmentations to honour Country as a thriving living entity.

In Seven Sisters Song (2021), Kaylene paints directly onto a road sign, a physical artifact of settler land divisions. Hers is a mode of storytelling that exists within the histories and futures of invasion and sovereignty. In the transformation of this sign into a substrate for art and culture, worlds collide in a potent moment of truth-telling. At the time of publication, Australia sits in the absence of a land treaty. The infrastructure of colonisation endures.

Kaylene knows and loves her Country, upholding her responsibility to play a part in cultural maintenance. While the foundational layer of Seven Sisters Song carries an element of colonial intervention, the scene overall is an expression of upbeat positivity, optimism, joy, and importantly, unwavering glamour. A grid of glimmering metallic dots emerges as a dazzling backdrop: responding to the found material, Kaylene occluded sections of the light-reflecting surface with hand-marked colourful patterns. This act opens and closes the layers, so that all realities exist in parallel.

Kaylene’s ability to dance within different worlds can also be seen in her openness to all media formats. Media plays a pivotal role in her work, evident in her passion and fandom for popular culture across eras and touch points including radio, screen and print. The portals created by media open national and global stories into Kaylene’s artistic orbit, as seen in Anangu Barbie Girl (2024), featuring Kaylene and Black Barbie, styling up. The artist presents herself at the same size, and in equal importance to, her sister icon, and the reciprocity between the pair overflows onto the canvas as a smile-inducing elixir. How energising to sense both Kaylene’s adoration as a fan and her confidence as a star.

A similar exchange takes place in the installation work Kaylene TV (2024), but this time the audience is invited into the scene to take a selfie, and so Kaylene’s cast of characters continues to expand. It seems Kaylene’s generosity extends to a deep and profound understanding that fandom works from both sides. Her passion for celebrity extends in two directions; Kaylene highlights her heroes and cares for her fans.

Kaylene Whiskey’s approach to portraiture is defined by her intentions for collective joy; an all-in expression of self-determination and empowerment. Her portraits are generous, witty and layered narratives about herself, her culture, her Country, her sisters and the whole wide world all at once. To recognise all this power, charisma, generosity, style, defiance and presence is to know kungka kunpu.

This is an extract from The Art of Kaylene Whiskey: Do You Believe in Love?, edited by Natalie King and Iwantja Arts, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.