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The above email originated in India. However, the bulk of the solicitations I receive come from China. I get these every single day. For what it's worth, in my contract I state that the painting is done entirely by me.
I think that portrait artists have to decide to what degree their work is to function as a commodity and to what degree it represents their soul. Unfortunately, when I see the bulk of what passes for "fine art" portraiture today, it's obvious that most choose the former. I see very little heart and soul, mostly superficial paint manipulation driven by a money-hungry ethic.
Maybe I'm too much the cynic, but I find a genuine lack of integrity in both the way business is conducted and paintings are made. Obviously this kind of environment creates a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of duplicitous behavior, like the email I originally cited above. It's recently been called to my attention that there is an artist out there using images of my work and claiming them as their own.
I had this sentiment recently echoed by a student in my, just completed, NYC painting workshop. She has been successfully painting for 25 years, has had numerous gallery shows, as well as a master's from Yale. She took my workshop to fill in many blanks. She said she looked at the websites of numerous portrait artists and found the work to be superficial and lacking in substance. She said she chose to study with me because she felt my work had authenticity.
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