Lorna Fencer Napurrula was born around 1920 at Yartulu Yartulu, a Yam Dreaming site in the Tanami Desert, and grew up living a traditional Warlpiri life. In 1949 she was among the many Warlpiri people moved by the government from Yuendumu to the new settlement at Hooker Creek, now Lajamanu, hundreds of kilometres from her Country.

A senior custodian of her Country, she spent her later years between Lajamanu and Katherine, and passed away in December 2006.

Lorna was a painter for most of her life, skilled in the body designs painted for women’s ceremony and in decorating coolamons and digging sticks with natural ochres. She began painting on canvas in 1986, with Warnayaka Art Centre at Lajamanu.

Starting with traditional dotting, she developed a bold, free and abstract style of thick, layered paint in brilliant colour: tangled forms and chains of colour that recall the roots and leaves of bush foods. Over the last twenty years of her life, these extravagant, sensual paintings drew the attention of collectors around the world.