Lena, wife of the late Left Hand Sam Ngwarai (Kngwarreye), is mother to five children including that of artist Nora Petyarre.
Initially Lena worked in the medium of batik along with over eighty other women from the Utopia Region in Central Australia. Her work in batik is featured in “Utopia Picture Story”. In 1996 she was invited to represent Australia in Western Samoa for the Festival of Pacific Arts where she was marked as ‘among the best available talent’.

Lena began painting in the mid 1990’s and has maintained her style throughout her paintings as a fine circular pattern of dots reflecting her soakage Dreaming, or unkempt arced motifs representing her Awelye – body paint designs for her Soakage Dreaming. Traditional colours of ochre reds, tawny yellows and soft whites bequeath her paintings with simplicity. Lena has only ever been known to paint the story for Soakage Dreaming, Bush Plum Dreaming and various bush foods.

Lena’s work has featured in numerous Exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her work is also represented in Collections throughout Australia.