Teamay was born in 1947, at Curtin Springs, a cattle station in the southwest of the Northern Territory. His family was Pitjantjatjara. He grew up at Uluṟu, Areyonga and Ernabella. He worked as a stockman for most of his early life. Teamay moved to Muṯitjulu after it was established in the mid-1980s. He began painting soon after, originally as a way of telling others about the history of his people. His first painting was about the problem of petrol sniffing. He has made several different versions of this painting since.