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

Hand-painted works are often wildly unfaithful to the movies they portray – reinterpretations that sometimes resulted in threats, insults and even physical attacks from viewers who felt duped Sitting on his porch in Teshie near Accra, Heavy J dipped a brush into red oil paint and dabbed it carefully on to his canvas – a flour sack – adding blood to a knife being wielded by a man. Higher on the canvas, he had started on an outline of a skull. Heavy J was creating a poster, but not as you might…