He is now one of central Australia's most successful artists, after winning the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2011.
He was said to be the oldest artist at Pukatja,[2][3] and also the community's most senior lawman (a keeper of Tjukurpa or sacred knowledge).
[8] This was prior to the arrival of White people in the area; the family had their first contact with Western civilisation in the 1920s, when Minyintiri was still a child.
He worked for most of his life as a shepherd and shearer, but became a widely respected ngangkaṟi (traditional healer) in his later years.
He paints songlines, or the journeys taken by the ancestral beings of his Dreaming country – such as the kanyaḻa (euro), malu (red kangaroo), wiilu (stone-curlew), waru (wallaby) and kaḻaya (emu).
[5] In 2010, Minyintiri's painting Malukutjina ("Red Kangaroo Tracks") was chosen as a finalist for the 27th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award.
[14][15] The background is made up of pale yellows and oranges,[16] and is covered with a complex network of thick, ivory-coloured lines.
[4] The network of lines traces the tracks of ancestral spirits (kangaroos, dogs and emu) to important waterholes,[4] where men also went for their ceremonies.
[10] The painting is therefore a reflection of the artist's years of travelling his country,[15] and an expression of his ancestral relationship to the land.