Interview #2
Sadie Whelan has a punk methodology to treasure hunting. She collects what others might leave on the curb: a chunk of plastic tiara, a scrap of fraying lace, a pair of fake eyelashes. Born in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and now based on Gadigal Land (Sydney), she has a magpie’s appetite for the chipped, the discarded and the unabashedly feminine.
Whelan has a particular affection for girly effervescence and
swagger. Her work brings together plywood, spray paint, plaster, glitter and found objects in collages that feel like a language she is inventing as she goes. And then there are the titles: Whore D’oeuvres, Rose Blockade, Vodka Pepsi. Gloriously unserious, they could be band names or fabulous drinks on a bar tab.
Whelan is a storyteller, building glamorous provocations out of girlhood’s leftovers. In her studio, tiara fragments, paint and resin become part of a loose choreography of objects, memories and associations. When she joins Silky Notes on a video call, she is framed by a painting of Coyote by her partner Matthew Gillon, which suits her like a crown. We talk about her refusal to conform to nonchalance, her yearning for a feral youth, and the divine mess a woman leaves behind after getting ready for a night out: dresses strewn across a bedroom, mascara turning the bathroom sink into a quasi-Pollock, the glorious wreckage of a night in progress.
But beneath the glitter and the punchlines is a more serious curiosity: who decides what is tasteful, which objects are worth keeping, and why certain expressions of femininity are so often dismissed? Whelan finds possibility in the things that are too messy, too sentimental or too silly to fit neatly into place. Her work makes a case for taking the supposedly unserious seriously.
Next year, Whelan will bring this unruly world to Paris for a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts.
Interview conducted in autumn 2026 by Paris-based Silky Notes co-founder Sara Chegri.
Words by artist and writer Jasmine Rodriguez.
Whelan has a particular affection for girly effervescence and
swagger. Her work brings together plywood, spray paint, plaster, glitter and found objects in collages that feel like a language she is inventing as she goes. And then there are the titles: Whore D’oeuvres, Rose Blockade, Vodka Pepsi. Gloriously unserious, they could be band names or fabulous drinks on a bar tab.
Whelan is a storyteller, building glamorous provocations out of girlhood’s leftovers. In her studio, tiara fragments, paint and resin become part of a loose choreography of objects, memories and associations. When she joins Silky Notes on a video call, she is framed by a painting of Coyote by her partner Matthew Gillon, which suits her like a crown. We talk about her refusal to conform to nonchalance, her yearning for a feral youth, and the divine mess a woman leaves behind after getting ready for a night out: dresses strewn across a bedroom, mascara turning the bathroom sink into a quasi-Pollock, the glorious wreckage of a night in progress.
But beneath the glitter and the punchlines is a more serious curiosity: who decides what is tasteful, which objects are worth keeping, and why certain expressions of femininity are so often dismissed? Whelan finds possibility in the things that are too messy, too sentimental or too silly to fit neatly into place. Her work makes a case for taking the supposedly unserious seriously.
Next year, Whelan will bring this unruly world to Paris for a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts.
Interview conducted in autumn 2026 by Paris-based Silky Notes co-founder Sara Chegri.
Words by artist and writer Jasmine Rodriguez.
Sadie Whelan: I finished my master’s last year, and that was really good for me in terms of getting to know and articulate that feeling. A lot of my work isn’t necessarily linear. It’s about being messy, chaotic and emotional, all the things that make us girls, everything we’re told we’re supposed to hide.
Thinking about the performance of femininity, I’m trying to celebrate all the moments of girlhood that I love. Those intimate moments shared between you and your besties. I use a lot of lashes, lace, stockings and shoes, materials that speak to the performance of being a girl. From getting ready in the morning to going out with your girls, I’m really inspired by the aesthetics of the aftermath.
SN: I love that you’re interested in the aftermath rather than the performance itself, the things that are usually cleaned up or hidden.
SW: Exactly! I love the bathroom after we’ve all been getting ready, when there’s mascara and foundation everywhere. Or when you get home and chuck your slutty club outfit on the ground. I want to give voice to those messy moments that aren’t normally seen.
SW: I grew up in West Tāmaki and the vibes were pretty bogan. Most people didn’t have much money, and the general vibe was on the trashier side, which I adore. I think this is why I'm interested in the fluidity of glamour - especially when it is constructed in a kind of make-do, working-with-what-you’ve got way.
I can be hyper-femme when I choose to, especially when it comes to dressing. I’m constantly fascinated by being a girl. I work at a high school, and all the little divas come to school with a full face beat, immaculate nails and eyelashes so thick you can’t see their eyes. I just love the performance of it all! I feel a deep endearment towards that slay princess vibe. I see it as a form of armour. Your lashes and your lip gloss are like part of your battle kit.
I love that teenage stage of figuring out what a girl is, and all the different variations of what you can be. I love the campness of it all.
SW: I’ve been thinking about nostalgia recently. It comes up a lot in my work, and nostalgia has a radical power within it. You can understand the now through the lens of then.
When I was little, my parents didn’t place lots of importance on the gender binary and I was able to embrace a sense of self that wasn't bound by conventional femininity.
There was no necessity to perform hyper-femininity, but at the age of three, I started wearing only pink. My lunchbox, toothbrush, everything had to be pink. I refused to wear anything else, and that lasted for two years. There’s a period in my childhood when every photo is just head-to-toe pink. As I got older, I moved away from it and tried to be super alternative. I was like, “fuck pink, that’s lame.” But now it’s come full circle; I have reconnected with my love of pink and the girliness that comes along with it.
When I started my BFA, pink had always been around, but it began to surface again and again in my work. Now, I feel like a piece isn’t finished if pink isn’t incorporated into it. I love it as a colour because it’s so elusive. Pink can be harsh and intense, kitschy, or soft and vulnerable.
It can speak to the body or to extreme artifice. It’s contradictory, hard to pin down, and that’s why I never get bored of it. I’ve been naming the colours of pink in my practice, from Hubba Bubba pink to Bras N Things pink to Strawberry Vape pink
SW: I was talking to Molly Soda, who’s an OG Tumblr girl, the other day, and I was so excited because I’m a massive fan of her work. We talked about the pipeline from teenage collaging methodologies and how that experience has trickled into our current practices. Molly is an incredible internet archivist: she collects photos from all over the internet and makes these amazing diverse works responding to them. We were talking about how, for me, that impulse transformed into collecting things physically. If people asked me to pick one medium, I’d often say collage or assemblage. Everything I do is a collage in some way.
When I was little, the city I grew up in had an inorganics day, a day when you could put anything you didn’t want out in front of your house for collection. My parents, brother and I would drive to the bougie suburbs and go through everything, collecting all this stuff: old toys, books, furniture. It was like a treasure hunt. The urge to collect has been drilled into me since I was young. I find that the more I want something, the more likely I am to find it on the street.
I’m lucky that my beautiful friends know my aesthetic so well that they collect things for me. I have an army of cute collectors. My friends will find a random miniature barbie heel on the street or an image of something pink, and tell me that reminds them of me. It makes me feel so seen.
SW: Things can acquire meaning by being part of bigger choreographies. I’m interested in value systems, and a lot of my work is about the concept of taste.
I’m really into bogan aesthetics. Growing up I was really into fake Gucci, fake Louis Vuitton, gold and glitz. You know, like M.I.A.swag. That kind of style. Gravitating towards things conventionally thought about as trashy made me interested in who gets to decide what is tasteful, and how that connects to socioeconomic divisions, what gets considered elegant or chic, and what doesn’t.
SN: Was that process similar when you were studying?
SW: I love maximalist and messy aesthetics. During my master’s, I went to lots of shows where the work was mostly tight, clean and tidy. Don’t get me wrong, I love so many minimalist heroes, but sometimes I find it cagey. I think that has something to do with the commercial aspect of the art world.
I wanted to be freer, and I had amazing supervisors who always encouraged me to be looser. They would tell me, “You don’t have to sanitise the messiness of the inner life of a woman as soon as you bring it into the gallery space. Be messy, kick your sculpture!” All those things you’re not supposed to do, I’m upping them. I’m a girl; I want to put some fake eyelashes and a broken ring in a corner, and I don’t need to explain why. I don’t need to validate it. I just like it and I want to have fun. It’s about unpinning meaning from these serious patriarchal structures and showing that being fun and silly is serious and meaningful too.
SN: What does your studio look like after a day of work?
SW: Oh my god. It’s crazy. It’s like a witch’s cauldron or a mad scientist’s lab. I have ten works on the go when I’m making work. I need to jump around. I actually have a lot of desk space, but somehow I always end up on the floor.
You have an ego death when you’re in the studio, being surrounded by materials and exploring them forces you to be super present. It feels like play. I go outside for a ciggy, look back, and it looks like a bomb has gone off. It’s very ad hoc. It’s become a fabric of my work.
SN: Do you think about what you create before going into the studio? I was looking at a piece I loved, Mia on the Bowlo Cliff. Was that thought out beforehand, or was it a product of being in your flow state?
SW: Some of my works are thought out beforehand, but the majority of them happen while I’m in the space with the materials.
The silhouettes of the girls were sparked by a conversation with my mum. She was doing a thirty-day yoga challenge. We were having coffee, and I asked her, “What do you want to get out of this thirty-day yoga challenge?” She said, “When I’m hanging up the washing, I want to be really present. And, oh, I want to levitate. I want to learn to levitate.”
I love her ability to hold the magic and the mundane in such a similar place. After that, I wanted to make an artwork of her levitating. The first girl came from a photo of my mum lying on the kitchen table, with her dress draping down below her. I projected the silhouette and cut it out of vinyl flooring. Then I put her up in my studio. It felt like I had my mum as a guardian angel, just floating there.
I wanted to make versions of my besties, too. One was a photo of Mia when we were a bit hungover and she was dancing by the Bowlo Cliff. It was such a joyful photograph. I’ve made silhouettes from photos of my besties, which is why I loosely called the series Look At My Girls, I’m Making An Army Of Them.
I want to make heaps and heaps of them and have a show one day soon. It will be like having all my guardian angels in one place.
SW: That was an early work, from the beginning of my master’s. I wanted to loosen up. I was thinking about magic and being a girl, so that’s where the intense femme idea of the bachelorette party came from.
The séance came about because the centre of the installation was like a low drawing board. I was getting really spooky energy. I was doing plaster casts of iPads, and there were bones lying around. Something about it felt very witchlike or spell-like.
SN: How do you come up with your titles?
SW: When I’m hanging out with my girls, they’ll say the funniest shit. I basically write down quotes all the time, or a line from a song or a movie that really resonates. I like to think of my. titles as a really long poem.
When I think of a title as less laden, as holding less responsibility, I can be more playful with it. I like to use titles to add a nod to performative femininity. Titles can make things very serious, so I like to do the complete opposite.
SN: They almost remind me of Panic! at the Disco song titles. I love it.
SW: Yes! That reminds me of my favourite title. I titled one of my works after something my bestie said: “Sorry Babe One Sec, My Heel Is Stuck in a Drain.” Her heel was literally stuck in a drain, and we were laughing so hard. We had to unstrap the heel of the shoe. As a girl, you can totally relate to that.
SN: I love that the friendships in your work feel like more than portraits; they become a kind of collective presence.
SW: A lot of my works are odes to my besties, or to the idea of having a best friend as a girl. It’s unlike anything else.
SW: I’m really obsessed with resin. I’ve done a few works with it recently, but it’s really expensive. I applied for a grant for the Paris residency, so if I get it, watch out for resin Works.
I like resin because, with these small objects I find, I can appreciate all their details in a 360-degree sense. If I use them in paintings, I have to choose an orientation. I always feel guilty about the side you can’t see. That’s why I love resin: you can suspend things. It becomes an object collage suspended in the resin.
I’ve been really into frames recently, too. I’ve been thinking about having slices of those collages as frames for paintings.
SN: What are you most excited about when it comes to your Paris residency?
SW: Having three months when I don’t have to work and can just be in the studio every day is an insane privilege. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience that any artist would die for. And then being in Paris, are you kidding me? That’s the most amazing thing ever.
I’ve been spending a lot of time this year in the making space of my studio, so I’m excited to do a lot of reading and thinking. I want to write a lot and get deep into the research side of my practice. I’m a social person, so I’m rarely ever alone. I’m excited to have some solitary time for the first time in a long time.
I also am so excited to see all the incredible art, go to the Louvre and see the paintings I’ve been studying for years. And see some Sophie Calle works, a hero of mine!