The Pickup's Arts & Culture coverage is supported by Brut Hotel, featuring a rooftop VIP after party for Tulsa Irish Fest on March 14.
Deadly Prey Gallery Pop-Up
Mixed-Use Space Tulsa
February 23, 2026
A drag queen strikes Bobby Hill’s “Tartuffe, the Spry Wonderdog” pose while driving a broomstick through the eye socket of what is presumably Pierce Brosnan, as the disproportionately large, disembodied torso of Joe Pesci grabs her loafer-clad foot in place of a jester’s poulaine. You didn’t have a stroke reading that. I just described Ghanaian artist Leonardo’s Mona Lisa: a Mrs. Doubtfire film poster.
This phantasmagorically rendered tableau, a viral image beloved for its hilariously gory absurdity, is possibly the best known in Deadly Prey’s massive collection of Ghanaian film adverts. But in Deadly Prey’s traveling gallery pop-up at Mixed-Use Space Tulsa last Monday, it was a relatively tame piece in the grand guignol that is their archive of over 500 hand-painted Ghanaian movie posters.
Deadly Prey Gallery was founded in Chicago by Brian Chankin in partnership with his best friend, Robert Kofi, to preserve the batshit beauty of Ghana’s mobile cinema advertising. In Ghana’s peak mobile cinema era of the 1980s and 1990s, film operators traveled with televisions, VCRs, generators, and tapes to screen films in towns and villages, and commissioned artists to paint ultraviolent, hypersexual, and/or otherwise outlandish posters (often on sewn-together flour sacks) to entice customers into their covered wagons. See: Mrs. Doubtfire pulling a Lucio Fulci.
The otherworldly images are iconic and beloved by all manner of cinephiles, as evidenced by the crowdsourced nature of their venue booking. Deadly Prey announced their tour on Instagram with a hole on the Tulsa date, and within minutes they received an avalanche of hosting offers and requests from obvious choices like Circle Cinema to bars, galleries, and the lucky winner, Mixed-Use Space Tulsa (M.U.S.T.), a community-driven, LGBTQ+ friendly, multi-purpose event, coworking, studio and gallery space in Kendall Whittier.
Cruising through Deadly Prey’s archive of prints online is a pleasure, but seeing the life size originals in person was a privilege. M.U.S.T. was papered wall to wall and floor to ceiling with the gorgeous and grotesque Ghanaian artifacts, enveloping patrons in a kaleidoscopic vestibule of insanity. Kermit the Frog and Garfield (the Cat) had Uzis; E.T. posed with Michael Jackson and Alien’s facehugger; the Seinfeld gang was flanked by demons and snakes occupying ocular cavities; and Norma from Twin Peaks had massive twin double-J honkers.
There’s a hilarity to this outrageous outsider art, but it’s not bereft of skill and sensibility. Artist C.A. Wisely’s approach to the human gaze is haunting, painting every eye on his Twin Peaks poster as a portal straight into the Black Lodge. And the paintings are not beloved merely for schlock value. A large adult and bearded Haley Joel Osment in a Hawaiian shirt joined Die Hard’s Bruce Willis and a monarch butterfly to advertise The Sixth Sense—a visual metaphor whose understated brilliance bordered on the sublime.
Apart from the displayed posters, Deadly Prey offered stickers and prints for perusal and purchase, and life-size originals stacked on tables to be politely flipped through and treasured. It was a truly Tulsa affair: attendees ranged from dedicated cinephiles (I know because they are my friends) to event organizers like Graveyard Shift’s David Nofire, wrestling fanatics I recognized from a recent AEW event, and every manner of alt-consumer, from punk to pixie. Guests were treated to free beer from Heirloom Rustic Ales and a live set from Tulsa’s DJ BASECK, whose logo was immortalized alongside a decapitated Joe Exotic on event-exclusive Deadly Prey T-shirts.
I couldn’t help but think about our impact on Ghana, as Americans. Ghana has long been propped up by the West as a “beacon of African democracy,” but Elon Musk’s dipshit DOGE cuts to USAID are projected to result in 14 million deaths over the next five years. Meanwhile, China has vastly invested in Ghana’s wellbeing and filled the power vacuum left by our dereliction of soft power. America’s influence is felt through our pop culture, haunting the plains like a murderous Mrs. Doubtfire.
So thank fuck for Deadly Prey Gallery, as they have a truly mutually beneficial relationship with these Ghanaian artists. They have preserved this incredibly niche genre of art, elevated its visibility and commercial demand in the West, made the artists household names among collectors, kept them busy with commissions, and given all profit back to Ghana. This is the upside of our immediate future under our collapsing empire: we will become hyperlocal in helping our communities through places like M.U.S.T., and through whatever means possible fill the global roles where government has abandoned its duties.
But enough of that sorrow. My partner and I need to frame our Gummo, Santa Sangre, Suspiria, and Muppet Movie posters, and bask under the grotesque goriness of their Ghanian glory.
