Ngoia Napaltjarri was born in 1943 at Haasts Bluff, west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Her late husband Jack Tjampitjinpa also painted for Papunya Tula Artists, and they
have five children. She began painting in 1997. She lived and worked at Mount Liebig (now Amundurrngu Outstation). In 2010 she moved to live and work at Kintore, NT and began
painting with the Papunya Tula Artists.

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.