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Pintores de Tigua: Indigenous Artists of Ecuador

Tigua artists from high in the Ecuadorian Andes are renowned for their colorful paintings of rural life. Their delightful folk art, painted on sheep hide, celebrates their mountain life with its festivals, legends, and traditions dating back centuries.

Tigua is a collection of small communities southwest of Quito. Most of the people here are famers who herd sheep and llamas and cultivate potatoes, onions, barley and other crops on a patchwork of steep, windswept fields and valleys. Tigua artists are deeply bound to the land. Even though most Tigua artists now live on the outskirts of Quito, many return periodically to their communities to tend to their lands.

Traditionally, the Kichwa people of this region decorated drums and masks for use in colorful festivals like Corpus Cristi and Noche Buena. In the the early 1970’s, Olga Fisch, a Quito art dealer suggested the idea of painting on a flat surface—a sheepskin stretched over a wood frame. It changed Tigua art dramatically. As the market grew for these colorful paintings, more and more men and women from the area began to paint. Though lacking formal training, Tigua artists have seen their creations exhibited throughout Ecuador and beyond. Tigua paintings are now widely collected and prized for their vibrancy and detail.

Tigua artists paint almost exclusively on sheep hide. The paintings are invariably small, their dimensions limited by the size of the sheepskin. In the early years of Tigua paintings, most artists also painted and decorated the frames of the paintings, though now it is rare to find a painting with the decorated frame. There have also been changes in the type of paint. Not long ago, all Tigua artists painted with the inexpensive enamel paints available everywhere in Ecuador. But since these lead-based paints were found to be toxic, many have switched to oils or acrylics.

Tigua artists generally paint scenes of communal life: villagers herding livestock, spinning and weaving wool, harvesting crops and going to market, or enjoying a bullfight. Other favorite subjects are Cotopaxi, the sacred, snow-covered volcano, Quilatoa crater lake with its rugged slopes, and the condor, the legendary “messenger” of the Andes. Faces on rocks and mountains reflect the Tigua view that all nature is alive.

For the most part, Tigua paintings reflect traditional aspects of life with a broad perspective rather than portraits or abstract compositions—village or rural scenes of multiple figures, themes of community and nature are typical.

Festivals are a common theme. Although predominately Christian, the artists still represent the ancient rituals and festivals of pre-conquest origin. Festivals portrayed most frequently in Tigua paintings are Corpus Christi (celebrated in June, a fiesta uniting Inca harvest festivals with medieval Christianity), Noche Buena (Christmas Eve), and Tres Reyes (Three Kings). And since music is inseparable from the festival, Tigua paintings typically pay homage to musicians and their instruments—flute, panpipe, drum, and bocina, the long wood horns blown on special occasions. Dancers, too, are a favorite. Swaying and weaving to the hauntingly beautiful music, brightly costumed performers in ornately carved masks of tigers, monkeys, and dogs dance through the narrow streets. In trouble or ill health, highland Indians turn to their shaman to perform the cleaning and healing rituals. The skulls, candles, smoke, and medicinal plants that shamans use in their ceremonies figure prominently in Tigua art. This genre tends to be somewhat somber and dark, as shamans practice their rites at night.

Historical and political themes are less common in Tigua paintings. Although the Incas did not spend much time in Ecuador, the rulers and Inca deities do figure in the paintings. Another historical subject is the hacienda period. In these paintings, Indian serfs work on the large estates. Today, political themes are common..scenes of indigenous people marching in protest, scenes of environmental destruction wrought by international oil companies and political leaders in action. Pachacama, protector of the earth and the principle Inca deity, is often portrayed as a disembodied visage in the background of the painting, a symbol of indigenous cultural pride.

The growing popularity of Tigua-style art has spawned a whole new host of painters, some native Tiguans, but many from other parts of Ecuador. Quality varies dramatically. Better painters sell their work through stores or galleries. Less-well-known artists hawk their paintings themselves. You’ll find them at the weekend fairs and on the streets of Quito and other towns where tourists gather. Not a few Tigua artists have turned their backs on the country, forsaking the rural hardships for the advantages of urban life with its abundance of tourists and art dealers. Tigua artists who severed their roots and still paint bucolic scenes of village life are frowned upon by those artists still living with their families in rural areas. They feel theirs is the true Tigua art, an art that expresses their ties to the land. They prefer to sell their art, not through galleries or dealers, but directly.

Tigua painters have earned the respect of Ecuadorian art dealers who once viewed them as mere artisans and their work handicrafts. Since the mid 1990s, Tigua art has been exhibited at the Organization of American States in Washington DC, the University of California Hearst Museum, the Museum of Man in San Diego, California, UNESCO headquarters in Paris and the Presidential Palace in Quito.

Tigua Art: Where to Go
Though quality varies widely, you’ll find Tigua paintings in tourist stores throughout Quito, at the weekend fair in Parque Elejido, the Mariscal Market opposite the Colon Hotel, at the market in Otavalo (Wednesday and Saturday), Saquisili(Thursday), and Pujili (Sunday) as well as by the entrance to Quilatoa Crater (about 30 minutes by car from the town of Zumbahua) and in small communities in Tigua along the Latacunga-Quevedo road.

About the Author

Written by Jean G. Colvin – www.sharefund2010.org

Jean Colvin is the author of the book Tigua Art: A reflection of indigenous culture in Ecuador (in Spanish and English). She was formerly director of the University of California Research Expeditions Program (UREP) and now directs a math education for indigenous schools in Cotopaxi and other provinces of Ecuador.

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