The Pintupi people were the last of the Aboriginal mobs to be located by the European settlers. It is for this reason that many of the designs relate to strong tribal issues that remain important to the Pintupi artists.
Coming from an artistic lineage, Joylene’s parents are Walangkura Napurrula and Kalara Tjapangarti. After growing up at the Ikuntji settlement of Haasts Bluff, in 1981 she returned from the community to Tjukurla and eventually settled in Kintore.
Joylene’s works are primarily ‘Women’s Tingari’ depictions of her country and the sacred women’s sites between the communities of Kintore and Kiwirkurra in the Western Desert of Central Australia. Her people would conduct important ceremonies at these sites and tell stories of traveling ancestors who would gather at these sites to rest, sing and dance in the past. Joylene’s choice of colours usually represent the more traditional pigments used for ground designs and body decoration. Her sense of design and movement shows the close association between painted images and the physical landscape.