In her earlier years, Lily lived with her family at the settlement of Papunya, but later moved to Watiyawanu (Mount Liebig – 325 km west of Alice Springs) (with her husband Norman Kelly, also an artist). Lily is a respected senior law woman of her community of Watiyawanu, and the custodian over the Women’s Dreamtime stories associated with Kunajarrayi.
Lily Kelly Napangardi began painting in the early 1980s. She won the Northern Territory Art Award for Excellence in Aboriginal Painting in 1986 and was a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) in 2003. In January 2006, she was named as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists by Australian Art Collector magazine. Napangardi’s paintings are of her country, especially of the sand hills (Tali) around Mount Liebig.