Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri was born around 1948 at Haasts Bluff, daughter of Angoona Nangala and Jim Tjungurrayi. Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri’s husband, (now deceased), Jack Tjampijinpa Pollard was a very important artist painting for the Papunya Tula Artists community. Ngoia Pollard was assisting him at the Papunya Tula community.
Ngoia has special custodianship responsibilities for her country. She paints her father’s country, which is a sacred Walpiri territory associated with narratives to the ‘water snake’. The oval shapes in her paintings are iconographic representation of the swamps and lakes near Nyrripi (Talarada), North West of Mount Liebig where Ngoia lives. The dots represent the water drying up and the cracks in the ground forming. She depicts the wet and dry characteristics of the country. This region is changed with the spiritual presence of the ‘Water Snake’ which lives beneath the surface. This is the area where her father had been hunting in the past.
Ngoia’s work is included in the National Australian Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and Artbank Sydney, amongst others. In 2004 Ngoia was the winner of the Advocate Central Australian Award and in 2006 was outright winner of the highly prestigious NATSIAA Telstra prize.