Not much is known about Thomas Teekes Oostenga. He was born in the Groningen Zoutkamp and continued to live and work in the province of Groningen for the rest of his life. He learned the trade from Jacob Bruggink, who settled from Amsterdam in 1831 as an art teacher at the Minerva Academy. Oostenga mainly painted genre scenes and produced lithographs. In 1838 he won an honorary prize from the Minerva drawing society. He later became director of the Groningen Drawing Academy.