Penny K Lyons is a senior Walmajarri woman who was born c1940 at Wanywurtu under a tutujarti tree (desert walnut tree), in the Great Sandy Desert. She grew up in that place with her family, one father, two mothers, one brother and two sisters. There is a rockhole with spring water at Wanywurtu and Penny remembers hunting for goanna and feral cat at this place.

In the early 1950 s Penny s family joined other groups who had migrated north towards the cattle station country along the edge of the desert in the Fitzroy Valley. When they left the desert Penny was a girl in her early teens. During the difficult journey she lost her mother s sister, then her father and mother. Penny says of her journey out of the desert:

Our group was the last to come out of the bush. Promised husband been bring 'em out of desert. Camp at bore, Victory Bore. Live at Christmas Creek. Policeman collect 1em from Juliet River, bring 'em into Christmas Creek. Station wife, Mrs Laidlaw, give 1em clothes. Came in from desert, no clothes. Stay here since then. Husband work at station.

Penny K Lyons now lives at Wangkatjungka Community, adjacent to Christmas Creek station. She began painting in the mid 1990 s, and her paintings depict the traditional waterholes and hunting grounds of her ancestral country in the Great Sandy Desert.

Selected Exhibitions:
2004 Wangkatjungka Women, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
2004 Jila & Tali , Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra
2004 Paintings from Wangkatjungka, Fire-Works Gallery, Brisbane
2004 Striking Colours of the Living Desert, Walkabout Gallery, Sydney
2004 Artists of Wangkatjungka, Raintree Gallery, Darwin
2005 Artists of Wangkatjungka, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney
2005 Yirmpurr (Living Water), Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra
2005 Wangkatjungka, Ladner and Fell Gallery, Melbourne
Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.