Tinga Tinga at St. Monica's Gallery
Thursday, September 8, 2005
The next stop was an art studio and gallery in Stonetown, housed in an old stone building run as St. Monica's Hostel on the grounds of an Anglican cathedral.
We were soon to find that this building housed a bleak dungeon that was once used during the time of the slave trade on Zanzibar, but more on that later.
Most of the artwork here were paintings in the Tinga Tinga style, a stylized and very whimsical form of painting, a sort of African impressionism first popularized by an artist named Edward Said Tinga tinga (1937-1972).
The subject of the paintings were usually African animals, painted with enamel bicycle paint on muslin fabric or masonite boards. The animals were bright and colourful and fantastical, almost resembling cartoons.
It's a very cheerful art form and I was happy to find one I liked for ten dollars. Rolled up into a tight cylinder and wrapped in newspaper, the painting wouln't take up very much room in my backpack.
I took some photos of others that I liked and Jeff's mom bought several pieces as Christmas gifts.
The alleyways and beaches here in Zanzibar are filled with tinga tinga paintings, leaning against walls and propped up in rows on the sand. I bought two others later on, including one similar to the paint-speckled zebras I took a photo of here.
I noticed after a while that although the paintings varied a little from place to place, there were great similarities of theme too. The pictures of the stylized Maasai people in red seemd particularly ubiquitous.
The next stop was an art studio and gallery in Stonetown, housed in an old stone building run as St. Monica's Hostel on the grounds of an Anglican cathedral.
We were soon to find that this building housed a bleak dungeon that was once used during the time of the slave trade on Zanzibar, but more on that later.
Most of the artwork here were paintings in the Tinga Tinga style, a stylized and very whimsical form of painting, a sort of African impressionism first popularized by an artist named Edward Said Tinga tinga (1937-1972).
The subject of the paintings were usually African animals, painted with enamel bicycle paint on muslin fabric or masonite boards. The animals were bright and colourful and fantastical, almost resembling cartoons.
It's a very cheerful art form and I was happy to find one I liked for ten dollars. Rolled up into a tight cylinder and wrapped in newspaper, the painting wouln't take up very much room in my backpack.
I took some photos of others that I liked and Jeff's mom bought several pieces as Christmas gifts.
The alleyways and beaches here in Zanzibar are filled with tinga tinga paintings, leaning against walls and propped up in rows on the sand. I bought two others later on, including one similar to the paint-speckled zebras I took a photo of here.
I noticed after a while that although the paintings varied a little from place to place, there were great similarities of theme too. The pictures of the stylized Maasai people in red seemd particularly ubiquitous.
posted by Spider Girl | 5:45 PM
1 Comments:
I think I rather like that Maasai painting.
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