Brand SA · Lisa Khan · digital yarn

Brand SA · Lisa Khan

An artist’s story, in her own words.

Lisa Khan is an Adelaide artist whose heritage is both Aboriginal and Pakistani, and whose work lives at the meeting point of the two. She spent her early years in Coober Pedy, and has since lived in Port Augusta, the APY Lands and Adelaide. Those places run right through her painting, in the colours, the patterns and the stories she tells.

For a Brand SA collaboration launching in NAIDOC Week, we made a film about Lisa and her practice.

The brief was simply to ask Lisa to tell her story; how she paints, where the work comes from, and what South Australia means to her, without a narrator getting in the way.

Painting began for Lisa at the kitchen table, watching her mum, aunties and grandmothers, and became something more serious later in life; a way to look after her mental health, and to hold on to her family's cultural stories for the next generation. "Art is important to keep culture alive," she says. That belief sits at the quiet centre of the film.

We filmed her at work in her studio at The Mill, staying close on the hands and the fine dot detail that's become her signature.

The artwork she made for Brand SA carries the same themes; community at its centre, diversity in its colour, growth in its native leaves. We wanted the film to hold that same warmth.

Alongside the main film, we produced a social cut and a full library of high-resolution stills, including behind-the-scenes shots from the day for Brand SA to use across the campaign.

Brand SA published a written feature on Lisa to sit alongside the film, with much more of her story in her own words. You can read it here: Lisa Khan — Brand SA