archiemcphee: We love these awesomely terrible movie posters. They’re the work of artists from
archiemcphee: We love these awesomely terrible movie posters. They’re the work of artists from the West African nation of Ghana, where creating outlandish posters like this blossomed into an art form all its own that peaked during the 1980s and 90s, commonly referred to as the ‘Golden Age of Movie Posters’. Although the title of each film is probably very familiar, the imagery in each poster might not be. That’s partially because sometimes the artists responsible for creating these posters hadn’t seen the movies themselves. Other times they simple allowed their awesome imaginations to run wild in effort to attract the biggest possible audience. They took impressive liberties with artistic license to add weapons, characters and scenes that didn’t exist in the actual movies. Painted on empty 50kg flour bags, the artists’ only creative restriction was the size of each poster, which was either the side of one bag or two sides stitched together. Ernie Wolfe, an African art dealer who began noticing these movie posters in the early 1990s, said that the artists often have a very specific idea of the effect they were trying to create. “They are definitely very, very good artists and they paint exactly what they want,” he said. Wolfe admires their work so much that he has written two books on the genre – Extreme Canvas and Extreme Canvas 2. “Having looked at hundreds of them, you become aware of their individual hand, their idiosyncrasies and their brush strokes,” he added. “The best of the Golden Age movie posters – from the ‘80s to the ‘90s – are the ones where they just completely went out into the land where there are no rules,” Wolfe explained. “It gave them an incredible freedom to be expressive. They made images that they knew would bring people in and no one was looking over their shoulder to tell them they couldn’t do anything. Their job was to be crowd-pullers. Whatever it took, they made images that would excite people and make them want to get off the bus, park their bike, whatever it was, and go to a cinema club.” Visit Oddity Central to learn more about the artists behind these unforgettable images. You’ll also find many more fantastic golden age Ghanian movie posters over at Awesome Robo. [via Oddity Central and Awesome Robo] -- source link