Noeli Kambili was born on 25th December 1976 in Dar es Salam to Makua parents from Nakapanya. Noeli has 2 brothers, one of them - Julias Peter - is also painting at the Tingatinga Cooperative. He started to paint on Thursday the 21st January 1997. He was introduced to painting by Mzee Lumumba who was also his teacher. Now Noeli is painting mostly butterflies. The story was like this: in 2002 an Indian woman came with a book a photo of a butterfly and asked him to paint it. Now the butterflies are a very common theme at Tingatinga Cooperative. According to Noeli he was the first one to paint the butterflies. Noeli is living in Bunju, about 1 hour from the Tingatinga Cooparative. He is however in the studio almost every day.