Dubai (AFP)
British artist Sacha Jafri has been making a canvas painting the size of two football fields in a Dubai hotel for seven months, drawing inspiration from "humanity" in an attempt to include his name in the Guinness World Records.
Barefoot on his very colorful canvas of nearly 2,000 square meters, stretched in a famous hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sacha Jafri wants to beat the world record for the largest painting on canvas and raise 30 million dollars (25 , 8 million euros) intended for educational or health initiatives for poor children.
He still has four days to complete his amazing work which will be cut up next week into 60 separate canvases.
Mr Jafri, 44, hopes to double the funds raised when the coins from his "Journey for Humanity" are auctioned off in February 2021.
The buyers "will own part of the largest painting ever made, and more than that, they will own a piece of history, and therefore of humanity," he rejoices to AFP, his jeans and his t-shirt all stained with paint.
Mr. Jafri has been working on this huge fresco since the start of the new coronavirus pandemic for 18 to 20 hours a day, in the hotel where he was confined.
The 300 or so layers of paint which are superimposed will have required more than 5,000 liters of paint and about a thousand brushes.
The artist says the pandemic has led him to think about how to connect people to help children, especially those living in the poorest parts of the world.
Children from 140 countries indirectly participated in the work by sending it their paintings.
© 2020 AFP