Tingatinga (painting)

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Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) is a painting style that originated in East Africa. Tingatinga is one of the most widely represented forms of tourist-oriented paintings in Tanzania, Kenya and neighbouring countries. The genre is named after its founder, Tanzanian painter Edward Tingatinga. Tinga Tinga also insipired kids animation tales, namely Tinga Tinga Tales.

According to Tingatinga, his paintings were mostly based on pictures and characters with Hindu mythological figures and sequences which he had come across as a domestic servant in a practising Hindu family in Dar es salaam.

This was the only employment Tingatinga had after he arrived from Mozambique at the age of 16 until he started painting, which he was taught by his employer.

Even the Sherani, the Devil (and other 'evil spirits') in his paintings, was given a black face after the Indian demon king Ravana.

Several copies of one white bungalow with a peacock and stylised flowers were also copied from Indian calendars. The bungalow was first drawn after the school building of St. Joseph's Convent in Dar es salaam.

Furthermore, Tingatinga did not hide the fact that he was signing all the paintings produced by his relatives and friends in the workshop in the backyard of his house.

Source: "Oriental Influences in Swahili, A Study in Language and Culture Contacts" by ABDULAZIZ Y. LODHI, ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS

Tingatinga is traditionally made on masonite, using several layers of bicycle paint, which makes for brilliant and highly saturated colours. Many elements of the style are related to the requirements of the tourist-oriented market; for example, the paintings are usually small so they can be easily transported, and subjects are intended to appeal to Europeans and Americans (e.g. the big five and other wild fauna). In this sense, Tingatinga paintings can be considered a form of "airport painting".^[1] The drawings themselves can be described as both naïve and caricatural; humour and sarcasm are often explicit.