‘Film Art for Homes’ a new hope for cinema billboard painters

The Karachi School of Art and East-West Centre Islamabad Chapter will hold their exhibition titled “Film Art for Homes” at Gallery 6 on May 14.

The demolishing of most cinema houses and replacement of hand painted billboards by panflex in the remaining few have left these painters without much work. This exhibition aims to promote and support struggling billboard painters. The need to revive this art form was first brought to the lime light by Karachi School of Arts through their exhibition “Beyond Billboards” in January 2010. Four billboard painters, Azaz Ghouri, Faiz Rahi, Riaz Bhatti and Suresh Kumar will present their work at the exhibition.

The artists were earlier given plain canvases and paints to work. They were also guided by students of The Karachi School of Art to adjust to the smaller sized canvas which they were not used to. The decreasing canvas size was gradual and now the finished works are 3x2 feet. Dr Arjumand Faisal, curator of Gallery 6, felt that smaller canvases were easier to display.

“The smaller size will also decrease the price, these four painters will be given the money that is made from this exhibition,” she stated. Visitors at the exhibition will be given an opportunity to get paintings made of themselves alongside famous personalities. In the future, they will produce imagery of famous film artists and objects like lanterns, candle stands and pen holders.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 14th, 2010.