Katherine was born around 1968 in the region of the Papunya settlement, Northern Territory. Her parents, the artists Walangkura Napanangka and Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula were part of a group of Pintupi people moved from their traditional homelands to the settlements of Haasts Bluff and Papunya in the 1950s. In 1981 the family returned, walking hundreds of kilometres to their Pintupi country of Walungurru (Kintore).
Katherine started painting in the late 1980s with her sisters Debra Young Nakamarra and Lorraine Nakamarra Yungut. Learning her Women’s ceremony and Dreamtime stories from her mother, Katherine is fast emerging as an artist of note in the next generation of Western Desert art.
Katherine uses striking colours and heavy dot work to depict traditional sacred women's sites in the Kintore area, which is located 250km west of Katherine’s birthplace. The concentric circles commonly seen in her paintings represent the important ceremonial sites for her ancestors and the connecting lines between the circles are the ancient travelling paths that lead to these sites.
