Jorna Newberry

Linton & Kay Galleries are thrilled to introduce Jorna Newberry, a Pitjantjatjara artist, born around 1959 at Angus Downs in the country between Uluru-Kuta Tjuta and Kings Canyon.
The late, great Tommy Watson was Jorna’s uncle and has been a tremendous influence on her work, teaching her to maintain the secrecy of important culture matters through painting in a multi-layered abstract fashion.

Jorna has recently developed a distinctive change in style, with a subtle, colour palette of whites, creams and neutrals on black ground. These richly detailed paintings are sophisticated and contemporary. Many represent Ngintaka, a giant perentie lizard and creation ancestral being of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people. The Ngkintaka songline is the major creation story of the Angatja area, and indicates the significant spiritual connection to their lands. Perentie are tracked for long distances and hunted for food.

Newberry’s painting career and methodology have developed into an instantly recognisable personal style that draws on the totem Ngintaka, a giant perentie lizard and creation ancestral being of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people. 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 started to paint in the 1990’s at Warakuna, referencing her country of Irrunytju in the Western Desert, with its places of significant traditional spiritual knowledge …and ancestral stories, which are imbedded in the land.

She currently splits her time between living a traditional Indigenous life in Warakuna and a modern life with her family in Alice Springs.