Jorna Newberry was a Pitjantjatjara woman born c.1959 in the country between Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. Her early years growing up on a leasehold cattle station were spent learning the ways of traditional bush living—hunting and gathering in the spinifex country. For Newberry, her Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) was deep and strong.

Newberry’s painting career and methodology developed into a unique and instantly recognisable style that drew on the totem of the perentie Nintaka. The perentie, or goanna, was an important and revered food source, eagerly sought after. Yet the artist’s paintings extended far beyond a representation of the iconic reptile—Newberry’s works were rich with symbolism and the intrinsic morphing of totemic imagery with the fabric of the vast desert landscape.

Jorna Newberry was an important and fiercely independent contemporary artist. She stood at the forefront of the contemporary post-first contact desert movement. Her paintings spoke of her heritage, her country, and the subtlety of her law. It was work that, in the fullness of time, came to be recognised for its marking of the transitional period in the lives of the people of the interior of this country and, by extension, the development of our broader contemporary society.

 

Sadly, Jorna passed away in February 2025.