Saidi Abasi Mitumbati (Shaha)
Shaha was born on August 10th, 1982 in Tunduru, Ruvuma district. He we nt to school from 1993 to 1999 for his primary education. He could not go to secondary school due to lack of school fees. He came to Dar es Salaam in December 1999 and worked for a close relative as a shopkeeper. During the weekends he got his off days and this is when be visited another relative Mr Rashid Chilamboni who was already an artist and started to train him, this was in 2002. He mastered quickly as painting was in him since he was at school. Rashid taught him for six months at his home in Mbagala. Later Shaha moved to Msasani and had another teacher and relative Mr Abdallah Chilamboni who taught him for one year. Note that the two teachers are brothers. After this he could depend by himself. In 2008 he became a full registered member of TACS.
He is married and has one daughter. He is very grateful to TACS for their cooperation and giving him the chance to paint and earn his living.
Shaha experiments with new styles. Sometimes he uses strong contrasts, even unusual colours or patterns on animals. On the other hand some very decorative paintings have only two or three colours like brown or yellow on a white background.
