Martha McDonald Napaltjarri (born at Haasts Bluff c. 1940) is also known by close relatives as Tjulyata. She is the daughter of founding Papunya Tula artist Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi and his first wife. Shorty also married Martha’s maternal aunt Napulu Nangala after her first husband’s death and raised her six children (Linda, Wintjiya, Pamela, Brenda, Donald and Paul) as his own.
As a young woman, Martha worked alongside linguists to create the Papunya Literature Production and Adult Education Program and in the Papunya preschool with her sister Linda Tjunkaya Syddick Napaltjarri. Martha is very proud of her language and is a skilled teacher, always offering to teach Pintupi-Luritja to Art Centre visitors. Martha had two sons and a daughter with her late husband, Snowy McDonald. She now resides a few kilometers outside Papunya in the idyllic surrounds of Blackwater outstation with her extended family, including grandson John Scott Rowe Tjakamarra, an emerging Papunya Tjupi artist.
Martha has been painting for a long time. She witnessed the beginnings of the Papunya Art Movement in the early 1970s, when her father created authoritative works that would go on to be internationally celebrated. While Martha paints his country, she does so in her own way, and only in relation to the stories that she knows about it. In 2015 she had her first sell-out solo show at RAFT Artspace, who continue to represent Martha, hosting her 2018 solo exhibition 'Tjulyata'.
Martha is an important elder in Papunya community and a Director at the Art Centre.
