As young children the artist and his friends would regularly visit their local cinema, The Strand on the Holywood Road, east Belfast. Always short of money only one of them would buy a ticket and enter. After sitting for a while the ticket holder would go to the toilet and open the fire doors to let the rest of his friends in for free. At the end of the screening, they would rush as a group from the darkness of the cinema to exit through the same fire doors into the blinding daylight beyond. Viewed from outside the wide-open fire doors bore the words NOSMO on the left-hand door and KING on the right-hand door. The children imagined the words to be the name of the owner of the cinema. When the doors were closed and viewed from inside they read as NO SMOKING. In this painting Yates manifests the imaginary Nosmo King.Original mixed media on canvas · 91 × 71 × 2 cmPaul Yates — Studio Collection, bradburyART, Belfast.
