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Artist Cat. A has created a selection of theatre posters re-imagined from historic performances at the Kings.

 

The multimedia works feature Pompey locals starring in key roles, such as 1973 Playmate of the Year Marilyn Cole-Lownes, who headlines Vampires from Venus.

 

The posters will be presented alongside ephemera from the archive, including programmes, news articles and cast photographs.

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Halloween 1913 – 2022 is Cat. A’s second solo exhibition. Cat’s art often has a satirical approach and can be found in unusual places.

 

Her first solo show was in a BT Phone Kiosk in 2021. She is interested in embedding community and place with her art and this show at the Kings marries those goals.

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The show will run in the Dress Circle Promenade from October 3rd - 31st and is available to view for anyone in the Kings Theatre.

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what exactly is in the exhibition?

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I have produced seven multi-media paintings and large theatre poster style prints of these will be displayed in the gallery promenade. The paintings are linked to seven historical performances from the Kings. These are Sweeney Todd (1993), Houdini (1913), Dracula (1989), Phantom of the Opera (1991), The Rocky Horror Show (1992), Clown Theatre (1987) and Vampires from Venus (1954). 

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The prints will be displayed alongside material from the Kings archive and The News archive (Portsmouth History Centre) such as advertisements, reviews, theatre programmes and performance photographs; as well as biographies of the models.

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what inspired the work in this exhibition?

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I was inspired by the typography and imagery from vintage theatre programmes and posters. The Kings archivists were amazingly helpful and found a great deal of material from past shows with a "Halloween" theme, so I could look at the original brochures. The Sherlock Holmes exhibition at Portsmouth Museum was useful too as they have a range of film and TV posters there. 

My favourite artists at the moment also inspired my work - Pauline Boty's collage paintings and Lubaina Himid's use of colour. I've been a fan of Dada collages for a long time now and Hannah Höch's photomontages will always inspire my work. 

 

Years ago as part of my pre-degree course in Art and Design, my Final Major Project had the theme "Sinister Fairgrounds". I looked at a lot of Soviet film posters for that project and those came to the forefront of my mind again. The posters I have made are actually quite similar to the work I produced on that course but are hopefully better. I'm always trying to get better at what I do and produce as high quality work as I can. 

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who are the models that feature in the paintings?

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I wanted to involve local people in my artworks as I am interested in ways of connecting community to art, and the art to the space that it inhabits. So when looking for a space to show my work, the Kings was very receptive to my ideas and it just made sense to use the history of the Kings as a foundation for a new body of work.

 

I tried to find local people who had a connection to the stories in some way, for example painting a local barber as Sweeney Todd, and depicting a comedian from Portsmouth as a clown.

 

Unfortunately, it was harder than I expected to find willing models, so perhaps cold-emailing businesses as an artist is not the way to go, so I can learn from that. Baring this in mind, my friends agreed to step in. 

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