Ngura Pukulpa – Happy Place

“Ngura Pukulpa is all about my Happy Place. My home Indulkana is where I love to be, spending time with all my family and friends, listening to good music and dancing! This video artwork and all my artwork is for everyone to enjoy – I want to share love, happiness, laughter and togetherness with everybody!” – Kaylene Whiskey

Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whiskey’s signature pop culture figures fly from the canvas in her latest work, Ngura Pukulpa – Happy Place. In her paintings, Whiskey introduces iconic figures like Dolly Parton and Whoopi Goldberg to her culture, depicting these heroic women engaging in traditional activities like hunting, collecting bush tucker and cultivating mingkulpa (native tobacco plant). In Ngura Pukulpa – Happy Place, Whiskey joins them, taking centrestage as a dancing queen with an entourage of seven kungka kunpu (strong women) from her community in Indulkana. They tear through red-sand roads in a Toyota Land Cruiser, dodging a cake-stealing Santa while an animated Blak Wonder Woman – rendered in her lively, singular style – flies through the live-action dreamscape.

Responding to the Melbourne Art Fair’s 2022 theme of ‘Djeembana / Place’, Whiskey has created a jubilant and irreverent celebration of her community, envisioning a space where imagination mixes with reality, and pop culture collides with traditional Anangu culture. The audience is invited to Indulkana, envisioned as a place of friendship and fantasy, where the joy of connection and Country is expressed through the power of superheroes, Sister Act and song.