Tigua Painters

Tigua is a little village in the Quilotoa Loop. With a population of around 3000 (mostly indigenous families) it has become famous for its painters and art.

We first heard of this style when we stayed at Casa San Marcos (http://www.casasanmarcos.com) during our first couple of nights in Quito. Casa San Marcos itself is a little museum with antiques dating a few centuries back and paintings from influential Ecuadorian artists such as Oswaldo Guayasamín (http://www.guayasamin.org). It is a beautiful colonial house in the heart of the Centro Histórico whose host has a great interest in keeping the national heritage alive. She even showed us a book she’s written on the Tigua painters and explained their influences and history.

All the paintings are done on sheepskin, hence why dimensions are limited to the size of the sheepskin. This means that the majority are rather small. They are all very bright and colourful and the level of detail varies from painter to painter. Most depict scenes of everyday life: farming, harvesting, etc or they show local scenery and myths.

I, personally, loved them and wanted to buy a few, but Stu had to stop me. We walked out of the Galería Tigua with a little painting which had Cotopaxi, the condor and some indigenous people about to harvest the land. A great reminder of the time we spent in Tigua and the Central Highlands of Ecuador.