Tigua painting is made on a scraped sheep hide stretched drum-tight over a wooden frame — frequently the retired head of an Andean bass drum. Enamel house paint goes on with chicken-feather brushes: glossy, opaque, and completely unmodulated.

Every shape carries a near-black outline. The space is flattened with no vanishing point, terraced fields quilt the panel edge to edge, and Cotopaxi's snow cone sits on the horizon while dozens of small figures fill the valley below.