Born at Watulka, south of Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia, Ningura Napurrula was the widow of Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi, and was amongst those Pintupi people who walked into Papunya in the early years of settlement. Ningura Napurrula's husband became one of the founders of Papunya Tula Artists in the early 1970s, and one of the exponents of the classic Tingari painting style that dominated Pintupi men’s painting until the early 1990s. In the 1980s, the family moved back to the newly established Pintupi township of Walungurru (Kintore), then to Muntarti outstation in Western Australia, before returning to Walungurru. Here, Napurrula and Tjungurrayi’s other two wives began assisting Tjungurrayi in infilling the backgrounds of his canvases with the meticulous, precisely placed dots that characterised the Tingari style.
In 1995 she began painting in her own right. Her works depict designs associated with the rockhole sites of Palturunya and Wirrulnga, east of the Kiwirrkura Community (Mt. Webb) in Western Australia. The concentric circles represent rockholes and the arcs represent Mimi, or the design painted with ochre on the breasts. The U shapes represent women camped at the site with wana (digging stick) and coolamon bowl (oval shape). Ningurra depicts the mythological events of her ancestors. Her artwork focuses on the travels of her female ancestors, the sacred sites that they passed, and the mythological significance of the bush tucker that they collected. In mythological times, one old woman, Katunga Napanangka, passed through this site during her travels towards the east. Ningurra Napurrula is hailed as being one of the most prominent Australian Indigenous artists, and her work is featured in the permanent collects of Musée du quai Branly in Paris, France.
