Kaylene Whiskey’s sneakers are so silver they’re making the light dance. She’s wearing one of her signature jumpers and sparkly Christmas earrings. The gleefully bold Yankunytjatjara artist is ready for a party, and she’s brought that mood to the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) for the launch of Super Kaylene Whiskey. Forget hushed, white-walled reverence: this showcase exhibition erupts in celebration. Big colour, big mischief, big joy.
It demands a soundtrack, and there is one: Cher, Abba, David Bowie, Boney M. And Dolly Parton, of course – always and forever Dolly. When she’s painting, Whiskey cranks up the music and works 9 to 5, Dolly-style.
Kaylene Making Movie … in Whiskey’s cinematic universe, she is the director, scriptwriter, set dresser, costume designer – and joyful, irresistible star. Photograph: Kaylene Whiskey/National Portrait Gallery
Whiskey’s life and work is rooted in Indulkana, deep in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. She’s a senior force within Iwantja Arts, the desert studio that has nurtured artists such as Vincent Namatjira, Betty Muffler and Tiger Yaltangki. Walking in her family’s footsteps (both her mother and grandfather were artists), Whiskey has spent decades painting the pop-culture icons she grew up with in the 80s and early 90s: the heroes of drive-in movies, music videos and comic books – everything from Mad Max to Monkey Magic. But she doesn’t step into their worlds; they drop into hers.
“When I’m listening to music with my friends I might think: what if Dolly Parton and Tina Turner came and joined our party here in Indulkana?” Whiskey says. “In my paintings I can make that happen!”
The exhibition starts in front of a giant TV set and inside is Whiskey’s living room – it’s a portal from Kamberri to Indulkana. Whiskey with curator April Phillips. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/The Guardian
And she does. Her idols are kicking the footy, picking bush tomatoes and noodling for opals in the rock piles of Coober Pedy. They’re folded into the Kungkarangkalpa Tjukurpa (the Seven Sisters songline) as naturally as old friends: Aṉangu storytelling and pop-culture storytelling together. There’s a great deal of play here, but also power: a declaration of who gets to be iconic, and on whose terms.
“This is Kaylene’s world, her universe,” explains April Phillips, the exhibition curator. “There are just so many layers of intention.” That universe is decidedly cinematic: Whiskey is the director, the scriptwriter, the set dresser, the costume designer – and a joyful, irresistible star.
Kungka kunpu … Whiskey doesn’t step into the worlds of pop-culture icons she grew up with; they drop into hers. Photograph: Kaylene Whiskey/National Portrait Gallery
I’m getting a special backstage tour. The final paintings have only just been hung, and Whiskey and Phillips are both fizzing with delight. They make a great team. Whiskey goes straight for the details – the small irreverent pleasures she planted for herself and still can’t resist (when I play back the audio of our tour, she’s mostly chuckling). Phillips marvels at the sweep of it all: the scale of what Whiskey is saying, not only about her place in the world but about portraiture itself.
“What Kaylene wants to represent and immortalise is so different from the classical conventions that it almost creates a new pathway,” Phillips tells me, her eyes alight. “It’s a sense of possibility. Each canvas might sit like a freeze-frame, but everything is in flux: people shifting, stories moving. You always have this sense that something has happened, and about to happen.”
Aṉangu and pop-culture storytelling come together. Photograph: Rhett Hammerton
It’s true. You can imagine Whiskey’s pictures coming to life at night, when the gallery is closed. And the exhibition’s opening move feels like proof. It begins in front of a giant television set, an old-school 1980s dial box. Kaylene’s heroes have busted out of the screen and into the gallery – life-sized. Wonder Woman soars overhead. Tina Turner swaggers; Catwoman slinks; Dolly strums her guitar. And inside the TV is Kaylene’s living room. It’s the perfect entry point: a portal from Kamberri to Indulkana.
I’ve come with a brain full of diligent questions, but the moment we step beyond the television, they scatter. I feel like Charlie Bucket entering the technicolour riot of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory: the whole world gone vividly, impossibly alive. Lollipops and love hearts tumble in beside plates of bush tucker – ripe quandongs and mingkulpa (bush tobacco). Gardens bloom and fruit under the vast blue of Sky Country. Honey ants patrol the borders of paintings, their abdomens syrup-heavy. There’s enough Diet Coke for everyone and the Christmas stockings are full. Michael Jackson is dancing with a water snake and making it rain.
“Everything’s strong and healthy in Kaylene’s world,” says Phillips. “Country is healthy and thriving and abundant. Love is abundant.”
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Kaylene is on TV … like the technicolour riot of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, where the world is vividly alive. Photograph: Kaylene Whiskey/National Portrait Gallery
That’s the watchword for this exhibition: abundance. And from this abundance, an argument emerges: portraits can be as full as the lives they honour. Nobody is ever alone in a Whiskey portrait. They arrive with company – animals, friends, food, objects, story, music – all the things that make a life a life.
The NPG has commissioned a major new work: a Cathy Freeman triptych, an exultant victory sequence. Whiskey doesn’t simply honour her; she elevates her to superhero, the Aboriginal flag her cape, running so fast her feet have left the ground. But the portrait that stops me is Kaylene’s canon-busting take on Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Whiskey’s goddess is an Aṉangu girl – not gawked at by men, not claimed or framed by them, but held up, witnessed, supported by extraordinary women. A rebirth. A reclamation. And a love letter to Kungka Kuṉpu (strong women).
Whiskey’s world is full of Kungka Kuṉpu, and they’re busy: they’re entrepreneurs and gardeners, nurturers and problem-solvers – driving cars, making cash, winning medals, tending Country, growing food, surfing impossible waves, staring down sharks. Making art. Making music. They’re never pitted against each other. No competition, no scarcity, no hierarchy. Just getting on with the work of living well and holding the world together.
Flying over Indulkana … ‘Kaylene’s in charge. She’s in charge of her image. She’s in charge of who’s creating the story.’ Photograph: Kaylene Whiskey/National Portrait Gallery
Whiskey’s portraits are anchored in self-determination. They thrum – joyfully – with agency. “Kaylene’s in charge,” says Phillips. “She’s in charge of her image. She’s in charge of who’s taking the portrait, who’s creating the story.”
The artist doesn’t say much. She lets her paintings speak for themselves – revels in the vicarious joy of watching other people fall into her lush and generous world (and worldview). But to end our tour, she leads me to a video installation. On screen, she’s airborne – arms out, legs kicking, soaring to the sound of Parton’s Jolene. Cape streaming out behind her. Every inch a superhero. I nudge her: “You’re flying.”
“Yep,” she says, grinning at the screen. “I’m flying.”
