Laketta Sharona Nampijinpa Turner

Laketta Sharona Nampijinpa Turner was born in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is the daughter of Alistair Jangala Turner and Judith Nungarrayi Martin and granddaughter of Helen Nampijinpa Robertson, all well-known artists who paint for Warlukurlangu Artists.

Laketta Sharona Nampijinpa has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu since 2014. Since an early age her parents have encouraged her to paint and by the age of 10 years she was producing her own artwork. She paints her Dad’s Pamapardu Jukurrpa (Flying Ant Dreaming) and her Mum’s Ngatijirri Jukurrpa (Budgerigar Dreaming) and Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush-tail Possum Dreaming). These stories relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it, and have been passed down to her by her parents and their ancestors before them for millennia.

When Laketta is not painting, she attends Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. She enjoys school and likes playing Basketball.  When she’s home in Nyirripi she likes to go hunting, in particular hunting for Bush Banana, with her parents and her three brothers.