Ronnie Tjampitjinpa was born around 1943 in the vicinity of Muyin in the Western Desert, about 500 km west of Alice Springs. When Ronnie was young, he moved from place to place with his parents and family in the Pintupi language areas. In the 1970s, however, Ronnie stayed for a long time in Papunya, where he played an important role in the establishment of the artist collective Papunya Tula Artists.
Ronnie is one of Papunya's most prominent artists and his work and painting style influenced and inspired many Aboriginal people in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1988 he won the Alice Springs Art Prize, followed by several major solo exhibitions in Australia. In 2004 Ronnie is elected chairman of Papunya Tula Artists.
The stories or Dreamings that Ronnie paints are those of the Tingari Cycle, the ancestors of the Pintupi. These ancestors traveled across the land from one sacred place to another, performing ceremonies and rituals. These routes are characterized in his paintings by "songlines", the flowing colored lines. Ronnie was one of the first to translate these traditional stories, songs and Pintupi mythology into a modern medium. His paintings are a strong representation of the characteristic Pintupi sytle: repetition of forms that are geometric, simple and bold, and pigments that are often restricted to a basic palette of black, red, yellow and white.
Ronnie's work is internationally renowned and can therefore be admired in several large collections in Australia. However, his work has also been shown in Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Groninger Museum. In 2015 he was honored with a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
Ronnie is married to Mary Brown Napangardi and continues to reside in the small Pintupi community of Kintore, deep into a remote desert area, about 500km west of Alice Springs.