In pictures ... a British artist in Dubai seeks to set a record for a painting on canvas the size of two stadiums

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British artist Sasha Jaffrey has been creating a painting on canvas the size of two football fields in a Dubai hotel for seven months, in an effort to put his name in the Guinness Book of Records.

Jaffrey, walking barefoot on his multicolored canvas, which is about 2,000 square meters, confirms that he intends to break the world record for the largest painting on canvas, and to collect $ 30 million for educational or health initiatives that benefit poor children.

Jaffrey still needs four days to complete this work, to be divided as of next week into 60 different paintings.

Jaffrey, 44, hopes to double the sums collected when parts of his "Journey for Mankind" painting are sold at auction in February.

The artist said that those who would buy his paintings "will own a portion of the largest painting ever painted, and most importantly, they will own a piece of history and thus of humanity."

Jaffrey began working on this giant painting since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, at a rate of 18 to 20 hours a day, at the hotel in which he quarantined himself.

The palette consisted of about 300 layers of color, requiring more than 5,000 liters of drawing material and nearly 1,000 brushes.

The artist explained that the pandemic made him think of a way to establish communication between people with the aim of helping children, especially those living in the poorest regions of the world.

Children from 140 countries were indirectly involved in the work by sending their drawings to Jaffrey.

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