Central Somerset artist in plagiarism battle
A central-Somerset-based artist found herself at the centre of an art scandal this week, when she spotted an American artist selling some familiar looking paintings online.
Nancy Farmer, from Moorlinch, is well-known for her paintings which have roots in fantasy, satire and fetish themes.
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Artist Nancy Farmer
“They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I was certainly being extensively ‘flattered’,” said Ms Farmer.
“I discovered that work that looked like several of my paintings were being sold with a price tag of $900 attached.”
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Intrigued, Ms Farmer’s partner contacted the artist to ask where she got the inspiration from and was told it was “straight out of my head.”
Ms Farmer then took to her blog to tell her friends and fans about the works she had found online.
She also notified the website which was selling them on behalf of the American artist, who removed them from sale almost immediately.
Ms Farmer said: “I absolutely don’t have a problem with people taking inspiration from my artwork.
“What gets me is someone blatantly copying it and then claiming it for their own idea.
“At the weekend, she announced the imminent production of Medusa using a hairdrier – and that too is one of my existing paintings.”
We contacted the American artist, Wendy Marani, for comment.
She responded: “I have already removed my pictures that toy (sic) think are similar.
“(I) will no longer show them. Please leave me alone, I am disabled and cannot deal with this. You will not see those pics anymore.”
You can read Ms Farmer’s account and view the paintings at http://www.tinyurl.com/nancyfarmer
2 Comments
by nancyfarmer
Thursday, March 14 2013, 4:54PM
“Despite managing to reply to Mid Somerset News, Wendy Marani continues to ignore me, so I have been so good as to make her an information page, should anyone care to look up the paintings of this 'artist':
https://nancyfarmer.wordpress.com/wendy-marani-plagiarist/
Feel free to link to it!”
by nancyfarmer
Tuesday, March 12 2013, 3:29PM
“...the bit about being disabled? I suspect the main disability is the problem she has with the truth - she is still using those paintings on another art site (don't email them, I have done but the person who runs it is away this week) and on Facebook, and she still also has my own painting on her Google+ account (for which I threatened to invoice her).
The girl may have issues, it's true, and I expect she finds them very convenient to hide behind when someone challenges her on anything!”