info@tinamaria.it
TINAMARIA MARONGIU
forerunner of the Artistic Movement "COMPACT ART"
Born in Cagliari on October 21, 1961, Tinamaria Marongiu, baptized as Maria Cristina, entered the world of art at a very young age as a pop music performer. In 1977 she moved to Rome, where for several years she attended the only workshop for emerging artists, “il Cenacolo,” created by “RCA Italiana” at the behest of president “Ennio Melis.” It was a place of experimentation and meeting between young talents and established artists, where research, cultural and human exchange were fundamentally important for her artistic growth. In 1979, under the pseudonym “Babi,” produced by Paolo Dossena and distributed by Polygram, her first 45 rpm record was released: “Maschere,” composed by Maurizio Monti and Aldo Tamborrelli. In the early 1980s, she performed, under her baptismal name “Cristina,” the song “La Lettera”: the opening theme of one of the first and most famous telenovelas broadcast in Italy, “Gli Emigranti.” The same song would later be included in the LP “Contremano.” Presented at the Cannes Midem music fair and reviewed in the world’s most important music magazine of those years, “Billboard,” the “Contremano” LP was released throughout Europe. In Germany, distributed by Virgin, it achieved great success. The single “Soli,” written by Riccardo Cocciante and performed by “Cristina,” ranked among the top spots in the German radio hit parade for over eight months. Tinamaria participated, as the Italian representative, in one edition of the "Malta International Festival." Also in the early 1980s, she acted and sang in a comedy by the ETI (Italian Theatrical Organization) in a leading role, together with actors “Emi Eco” and “Valerio Isidori.”
At the end of the 1980s she moved for a short period to the USA, California, where she attended a singing course. She graduated as a “Pop Music Performer” at “CET” (the music university founded and directed by Giulio Rapetti, known as "Mogol"). In the early 1980s Tinamaria began to try her hand as a songwriter and registered with SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers), but her artistic and songwriting vein emerged insistently in the very early 1990s. In 2004 Tinamaria participated with two of her compositions in the competition "L’ALTRA MUSICA," organized by "IMAIE," ranking among the winners. In 2005, on the occasion of the competition "Gli Italiani nel Mondo," held between Paris and Sanremo, alongside the festival, she won the critics' prize with her song: "Madreterra." In 2007, Tinamaria left for Havana – Cuba, where, with the help of the extraordinary Cuban flutist Jose’ Luis Cortes, she produced her first singer-songwriter CD "Dal Poetto al Malecòn," released under the Interbeat label and distributed by CNI (Compagnia Nuove Indie).
In July 2008 she was a guest at the “Premio Lunezia.” With some tracks from her latest musical project “Passepartout,” Tinamaria was a semifinalist at the “Premio Musicultura” 2010.
In 2023, within a CD entitled “Sanremo Famosi” by various artists, published by Dino Vitola, her song “ATTIMI” was also included. Her great curiosity and need for new expressive modes will be the driving force for incessant research and experimentation. Author of her songs, poems, photographs, up to Visual Arts.
A three-year Master’s in Art-Counseling, obtained in Rome in 2009, through which she experimented with various artistic techniques, would be the push that projected her into the world of Visual Art.
Her great curiosity and constant search for new expressive languages will be the engine of an incessant work of experimentation.
In 2010 she created her first Box-Es works, material creations without predetermined planning, born from the desire to express herself freely in a standardized and conformist society. Three-dimensional works made with organic, inorganic materials and recycled parts, mixed with colors and resins and enclosed in plexiglass cases. Among the materials she constantly includes the “medicine,” symbol of the “ease and unease” of man and the world.
In 2011 she participated in the Biennale di Chianciano and won the 3rd "Leonardo Prize" in the "Applied Arts" section. Also in the same year she was present, with some of her Box-Es, in one of the collateral events of the Venice Biennale, and moreover, she was present with a solo exhibition, for the first time in Miami, Florida USA.
In 2013, responding to the need to define and frame a precise creative paradigm, Tinamaria Marongiu coined the term Arte Compatta, in which she inserted a strong Social concept summarized in five words: Uniqueness - Universality - Union - Humanity - Equality - establishing herself as its conceptual creator.
This artistic mode is distinguished by the assembly of heterogeneous materials – organic, inorganic, and recovered fragments – integrated into unitary three-dimensional compositions, subsequently enclosed in plexiglass cases. Her works represent a synthesis between material experimentation and formal coherence, challenging the conventional boundaries between art, artifact, and ecological consciousness. ***Arte Compatta / Compattismo
In 2025, the theoretical framework underlying this practice is officially codified with the publication of the Manifesto of Arte Compatta in issue 366 of the Bologna quarterly magazine I MARTEDÌ. This publication marks the official launch of a new International Artistic Movement, proposing Arte Compatta as an aesthetic and Socio-Cultural response to contemporary materiality.
In October 2020, at the 43rd International Medusa Aurea “AIAM” Prize, she ranked 1st place, gold medal, for sculpture.
In June 2021 she participated in the "London Art Biennale." Winner of the "Gagliardi Gallery Award" (4th prize ex aequo), she was also among the 25 artists selected for an exhibition in London from November 3 to 12, 2022.
In 2022 she participated in the Biennale di Chianciano, where she won 1st Prize in the Applied Arts section.
Present since 2018 in the Catalog of Modern Art (CAM) published by Giorgio Mondadori (formerly Bolaffi) and with several publications in the magazine "Arte" Mondadori and others.
The notoriety and originality of her Box-Es have led her to exhibit successfully in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and worldwide.
In 2025 she also obtains certification as a "Ceramist"
2025 - The Bologna cultural quarterly I MARTEDÌ, published by the publishing house I Persiani, opens the first issue of the year with the official publication of the "Manifesto of Arte Compatta", with the supervision of journalist and writer "Domenico Segna" and the magazine's Director "Father Giovanni Bertuzzi"
