Mmmm...ulcers...
As a gallerist- I take the artists feelings and needs very seriously. As a former painter myself- I know how brutal it is to deal with promoting your own work. Recently I had to drop an emerging artist who was borrowing imagery a little too liberally from another, more established artist. I've had to do it before, when an artist was once copying the EXACT syle of another artist. When I tried to kindly tell him he flipped out and sent me a bunch of slightly menacing emails defending his position and insulting me. The artist I was sticking up for came to me later and thanked me as that guy had been a thorn in the side for some time. In this case however, it's pretty rough as I feel the younger artist used the imagery he did because he was inspired by it and it really spoke to him. However- he did use a lot of imagery very closely associated with the more established painter and I can totally see why it'd be offensive to him. Because my loyalties must lie with the people I have supported and who have supported me I had no choice but to let this guy go. I should also add I quickly heard that MANY people felt the same way about this younger artist. This is quite a problem in this art movement actually...there are scads of artists who try to imitate the styles of Mark Ryden, The Clayton Brothers,Shag (who himself is inspired by retro design)...well, anyone who is sucessful actually. It's obvious many artist find the same inspirations or are inspired by other artists , but there is a fine line. I find now I can pretty easily pick out who's a student of an artist just by looking at thier work. It's too bad. I feel pretty awful about it but that's the breaks I guess.
