Jorna Newberry is a Pitjantjatjara woman born c.1959 in the country between Uluru-Kuta 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) is deep and strong. 

Newberry's painting career and methodology have developed into a unique and instantly recognisable style that draws on the totem of the perentie Nintaka. The perentie or goanna is an important and revered food source eagerly sought after to this day. Yet the artist's paintings extend far beyond a representation of the iconic reptile—Newberry’s works are rich with symbolism and the intrinsic morphing of totemic imagery with the fabric of the vast desert landscape.

Jorna Newberry is an important emerging and fiercely independent contemporary artist. She is at the forefront of the contemporary post-first contact desert movement. Her paintings speak of her heritage, her country and the subtlety of her law. It is work that, in the fulness of time, will 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.