‘We are preserving a tradition’: how Ghana’s sensationalist film posters became collectible art | Ghana

S.Standing on his porch in Teshie, near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush in red oil paint and carefully smeared it onto his canvas (a flour sack), adding blood to a knife wielded by a man. He had begun sketching a skull above the canvas.

Heavy J was making a poster, but it wasn’t what you’d expect from a horror movie. Instead, it was for the animated fairy tale The Little Mermaid. The man with the knife was not a murderer, but Eric, the good-hearted prince of the movie. The skull also had nothing to do with the story. “We are adding more to get people interested,” said Heavy J, whose real name is Jeaurs Affutu.

Movie posters, hand-painted by local artists, were a hallmark of Ghanaian film culture from the late 1970s to the early 2000s; They were used to advertise screenings at neighborhood venues known as video clubs after organizers realized the original posters were not attracting audiences.

Plot lines were seen as little more than jumping off points for humorous and surreal flights of fancy. Artists working in different video clubs competed to make the best “fake” while telling their comments.

This practice began to decline around the turn of the century as more Ghanaians gained access to electricity and their own televisions and video players. Many video clubs closed and artists moved on to create other work. But by that time the posters had attracted worldwide attention, had become popular in books and at foreign exhibitions, and old and rare paintings had become valuable collector’s items.

There was a lull in interest in freshly painted posters in the early 21st century, but demand increased, driven by online marketing and a savvy customer base of movie lovers in the West.

Deadly Prey Gallery is working with artists to preserve the culture of making hand-painted movie posters while helping meet growing demand.

The business, named after an action movie, was founded in 2012 by Ghanaian Robert Kofi, who as a child worked as a “hype” in video centers in his hometown of Winneba. He later began collecting and selling posters, then started the business after selling some of his works to Brian Chankin, who owned a video rental store in Chicago.

Deadly Prey Gallery has been working with 15 artists for four decades, including Heavy J, who paints posters, connects them with customers online, and ships the artwork once it’s completed.

Kofi said most of the orders come from the United States. Old action, science fiction and horror movies are most popular. Popular games include The Exorcist, Star Wars and Terminator series. Prices for ordered parts start at $600 (£450).

Based in Accra, Kofi is a tracks manager and tracks editor. He identifies the artists most suitable for each work, shares his vision for the posters with them, and makes regular visits to work spaces to examine works in progress.

At a studio in Ashaiman, 17 kilometers away from Heavy J’s home, another artist named Stoger was working on two commissions: one for the horror film Poltergeist, the other for the 1997 experimental drama Gummo, which featured numerous acts of violence against cats and a scene in which a character eats spaghetti in a bathtub.

The poster showed three cats and a man in the bathroom with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. Speaking in Ga, Ghana’s native language, Kofi told Stoger in his feedback that day that two of the cats were not aggressive enough and the food was too clean. “I want uglier cat scenes,” she later explained. “Spaghetti must be dirtier.”

Stoger, born Benjamin Amartey, was a sculptor before becoming interested in films and becoming a poster painter in 1992. “I use my imagination to make scenes that will make people love the poster,” he said.

Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, director of Ashesi University’s Center for African Popular Culture and a poster collector himself, said the emphasis on exaggeration comes from the African tradition of “visualizing the invisible.”

“The poster audience hasn’t seen the movie, so it’s impossible for them to know. [whether they are accurate]. That’s why artists use what they call creative painting,” he said. “They’ll highlight these, and in doing so, they’ll include things that aren’t there. There’s a kind of sensationalism to it.”

Reinterpretations occasionally resulted in threats, insults, and even physical attacks from viewers who felt deceived. Kofi laughed as he recalled an incident in the 1990s where people beat him up after watching the action movie Double Impact and noticed that there was no Jean-Claude Van Damme beheading scene as shown on the poster.

at the National Cultural Center in Accra, Dozens of colorful posters from Deadly Prey Gallery are hung on the wooden walls. These include Jennifer Lopez shooting an arrow at a snake in Anaconda and a mouse coming out of Jamie Lee Curtis’ mouth on Halloween.

“We are preserving a tradition,” Kofi said about the art of poster painting. “We are protecting a history”