“Everybody together, looking so good!” —Kaylene Whiskey, 2023
Kaylene Whiskey loves American music and movies. In this painting she imagines female celebrities visiting her remote desert community of Indulkana, South Australia. Painted in comic-strip style with speech and thought bubbles, the women, or kungkas, address the viewer. Here, a giant Princess Leia offers the nicotine-rich plant mingkulpa, while one version of Cat Woman declares her hunger for tjala, the Aboriginal delicacy honey ants. Wonder Woman announces a kungka party in America. Combining powerful women with Indigenous Australian cultures, Whiskey playfully celebrates sisterhood and invites everyone to have fun.
2022 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, purchased from Kaylene Whiskey through Fort Gansevoort Gallery [1]
Notes:
[1] Invoice dated August 26, 2022 [SLAM document files]. Minutes of the Collections Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, November 28, 2022.
