Delena Napaljarri Turner was born on the 15 March 1991 in Alice Springs Hospital. She is an Arrernte woman, who grew up in the Ltyentye Apurte Community, also known as Santa Teresa, an Arrernte indigenous community in the Northern Territory, Australia, located about 80 kilometres south-east of Alice Springs. She began her schooling at the local school before going to Kormilda College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Darwin. She left school at the end of Year 11 and lived in Alice Springs before moving to Nyirripi, a remote aboriginal community located approximately 430 km from Alice Springs, to be with her sister. She has three children with her partner, Glen Jampijinpa Martin who also paints.
Delena began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2016. She paints her grandfather’s dreaming, Sandy Bore on the Sandover Highway, north of Alice Springs and east of the Stuart Highway, on Utopia Land. “I like to paint imaginary patterns” which she creatively combines to blend traditional motive with her own ideas of modern design.
When she is not busy with her children and when she is not painting, she likes to go hunting for bush tucker.
