Lorna Ward Napanangka

Lorna Ward Napanangka (born 1960, Yuendumu, Northern Territory, Australia) is a Warlpiri artist whose paintings are grounded in ancestral knowledge, Country, and women’s ceremonial narratives. Working within the tradition of Central Desert painting, she translates Dreaming stories—particularly those associated with her mother’s Country—into rhythmic compositions of dots, lines, and layered fields of color. Her work communicates systems of kinship, land stewardship, and spiritual continuity, functioning as both cultural transmission and contemporary abstraction. Napanangka is a senior custodian of Warlpiri knowledge, and her paintings reflect the enduring vitality of Indigenous law, memory, and connection to place.