Art Installation

KTAFA × Baird Bay

KT Aboriginal Fine Art showcases authentic Aboriginal art inside the luxury seaside villas of Baird Bay on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. Featuring original artworks by KTAFA artists including Kelly Taylor, the collaboration brings powerful Indigenous Australian art into a stunning coastal environment where visitors can experience culture, storytelling and connection to Country.

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Eyre Peninsula

South Australia's west coast

Luxury villas — Selki & Eko

Generations of family artists

APY Lands

Stories rooted in desert Country

The installation

Where desert Country meets the sea

The Baird Bay installation is unlike any other in the KTAFA family's body of work. Here, the artworks are not in a gallery or a corporate foyer — they are in a place of quiet luxury on the remote coastline of the Eyre Peninsula, where guests come to swim with sea lions, walk the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight, and watch the sun set over the Southern Ocean. The KTAFA artworks, rooted in the desert Country of the APY Lands, find a new home in this coastal setting — creating a dialogue between two landscapes that have shaped the family's stories for generations.

The setting

Where the desert meets the sea

Tucked away on South Australia's remote Eyre Peninsula, Baird Bay is a place of dramatic contrast — where the red sands of the outback meet the Great Australian Bight, and ancient salt plains stretch inland toward Lake Gairdner.

It is here, in this pristine coastal environment, that KT Aboriginal Fine Art has installed original artworks inside the luxury seaside villas of Baird Bay, bringing powerful Indigenous Australian art into a setting where visitors can experience culture, storytelling and connection to Country.

The collaboration creates a unique dialogue between desert Country and the ocean — two landscapes that have shaped the KTAFA family's stories for generations.

The installation

Art that carries Country into the villa

The installation of KTAFA artworks at Baird Bay's luxury seaside villas places original Aboriginal paintings at the heart of the guest experience. Visitors staying at the villas are welcomed by artworks that reflect Aboriginal storytelling traditions — meeting circles, flowing travel lines and rich earth tones that represent gatherings of family, cultural knowledge and the passing of stories between generations.

The villas, designed with soothing neutral tones, seagrass, linen and timber, provide a calm backdrop that allows the vibrant colours and intricate dot work of the KTAFA pieces to resonate. Local artistry — from Indigenous artworks to handmade lighting — anchors the villas in the spirit of Baird Bay.

For KTAFA, the installation represents something deeply meaningful: the family's artwork, rooted in the red sands and waterholes of the APY Lands, finding a home on the coast where the desert meets the sea.

The stories behind each painting are about my childhood days where my family hunted and gathered traditional foods, playing and rolling down beautiful red sand hills of Ernabella, Fregon, Ayers Rock, Indulkana, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy and Port Augusta, where we would camp surrounded by trees, wild flowers, sand hills and plenty of water holes to swim in and sit by the campfire on country and listening to our nanas and other elders telling stories. These are my stories.
Kelly Taylor

Three generations

A family tradition, from nana Millie to today

The artworks installed at Baird Bay carry the weight of three generations. Kelly Taylor, of the Antikirinja/Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha peoples, was taught to paint by her late grandmother Millie Taylor (nee Lennon), who she describes as her greatest influence.

"My nana Millie was my teacher, she always encouraged me to paint and passed many ancient stories down along the way," Kelly says. "Following her example, I passed down what I learnt to my three daughters."

T'keyah Ware, Kelly's daughter, began painting at 13 and has developed her own vibrant style while continuing the family's storytelling tradition. Together, Kelly and T'keyah create their pieces at home, their signature "creeper dots" style blending and overlapping colours to bring out the beauty of ancient art merging with contemporary expression.

She always will be my greatest influence, she guided me into finding my identity through songs and stories of cultural beliefs and heritage, she always encouraged me to paint and pass down many ancient stories along the way, she was my teacher, she left a legacy behind that was known by many in the communities she grew up in and places she lived.
Kelly Taylor, on her grandmother Millie Taylor

The experience

Barefoot luxury, grounded in culture

Baird Bay Seaside Villas offer a new definition of luxury — one that intertwines serenity, nature and thoughtful design. Two self-contained villas, Selki and Eko, accommodate guests in understated elegance, with the KTAFA artworks serving as cultural centrepieces within the interiors.

Beyond the villas, guests can swim with wild sea lions and dolphins in the pristine waters of Baird Bay, walk the highest point on the Great Australian Bight, or head inland where the red sand of the outback meets the great salt plains of Lake Gairdner.

As the sun sets over the Bight, guests return to the villas to find themselves surrounded by artworks that speak of a different landscape — the desert Country, the waterholes, the campfires and the stories passed down through generations. It is a collaboration that celebrates both culture and place, bringing together the strength of Aboriginal art with the serenity of the ocean.

Visit Baird Bay Seaside Villas →

The setting

A collaboration of culture and place

Baird Bay Seaside Villas redefine luxury as an immersion in nature, refined by thoughtful craftsmanship and local artistry. The KTAFA artworks are part of a design philosophy that anchors the villas in the spirit of Baird Bay — where every element, from the seagrass textures to the Indigenous artworks, tells a story of place.