Kaylene Whiskey's joyous and detailed paintings have gained widespread recognition for their celebration of kungka kungpu (strong women). Often embodied by pop culture icons such as Tina Turner, Cher and Dolly Parton, these figures come to life within the landscape of her home in Indulkana, a tight-knit indigenous community nestled within the vastness of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of South Australia. Bridging the traditional and contemporary, Whiskey's work seamlessly blends these disparate cultures with an irreverent humour, fostering an engaging dialogue on contemporary Aboriginal life and the complexities of cultural identity.

Whiskey, a self-taught artist developed her practice through Iwantja Arts, an art centre in the Indulkana Community, and her acclaim continues to grow. Born in 1976, the artist’s large-scale paintings embody her generation’s experience of growing up with MTV and the ubiquity of consumer brands like Coca Cola and KFC. She acknowledges that these experiences have shaped who she is, as well as forming the very desires of her generation—but this is without severing contemporaneous expression as part of the oldest living Indigenous culture in the world.

Whiskey’s vision comes from a place of vast imagining rather than a story of cultural loss or environmental destruction. We are shown what happens when two opposing social systems—Aboriginal Australia and Western pop culture—collide: a celebration. In Kaylene is on TV (2023), Whiskey illustrates Wonder Woman, Cat Woman and Supergirl in vivid comic-book style as they celebrate her success. “Kaylene is on TV!” reads the TV as some of Whiskey’s favourite kungka kunpu dance and move alongside. In Cooking my famous Indulkana soup, a 2023 Archibald finalist work now in the collection of the AGNSW, Dolly Parton is depicted on the very same TV singing a country music song. Following her great success over recent years, Whiskey depicts her name in the TV that inspired so much of her practice.