Alias Arts

Here’s a distinguished Australian art expert talking about art. Please don’t watch this video if the F-word offends.The actor is Heath Franklin (not Eric Bana) and he’s playing the role of career criminal Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read. The Vincent/ear th…

I have been grocery shopping and brought home some meat and vegetables.There’s the t-bone steak for the carnivores.They say carrots are good for the eyes.Chicken is a popular.Potatoes are boring, I don’t care how they’re cooked.Minced meat for spaghett…

Home is worth the long wait if you have a slow internet connection. The makers of the film have more videos on their YouTube page.I stopped reading books and news on the environment a while ago as they’re just too depressing, but with this one they at …

Art News Blog is FIVE years old. That must make me some kind of blogger or arts writer or something. I’m most comfortable with the “something” label though. Someone called me an art critic recently and I didn’t know how to react. He said it in a way th…

Easily the best living painter in the world.. in my humble opinion.Before seeing or hearing Lucian Freud speak I thought he might be a more forceful person. I figured that the man would have been much less delicate than he is in person as his paintings…

Here’s the art studio of the Australian artist Leith O’Malley. Leith’s work was recently showing at the The 4th Wall Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

Art in various stages of completion.

Artist, palette and portrait.

This is Leith in front of a Rory Gallagher portrait.. sharing the same shirt.

See more of Leith O’Malley’s work on his website here.

Or more artist studios here. Also, if you have sent me photos of your studio I will post them, I just thought I would spread them out rather than posting them all at once.

Just a quick post to try and rank on Google for two active art scammers at the moment. I have been getting emails and new comments on old art scammer posts about “Janet Gillian” and “Jeff Carter” of Expressmover.

Janet Francis has magically morphed into Janet Gillian and is busy trying to scam artists at the moment.

Jeff Carter of Expressmover or Express Mover has been their imaginary delivery man for a while now. Expressmover is a fictional mover invented by a Janet or a Jeff.. who knows. The names are not so important, it’s their method of scamming artists which is most important. Janet Francis turns into Janet Gillian and Expressmover might be Express Packages next week.

This particular little group of cockroaches seem to like the names Janet and Jeff. My apologies to most Jeffs and Janets out there, but if a Janet or Jeff contact you using worse English than mine, make sure you ask them to pay with Escrow.com and they’ll scurry away back to their dark and sad little holes where they belong.

Here’s a comment by an artist..

I have just been royally scammed by “Janet Gillian”. I was about to contact the FBI when I decided to google the address of the mover. Yes, all “her” emails are almost identical to those posted. I believe she got me for $2700. I received a check via UPS overnight in an amount which was $2700 over my asking price. The check was drawn on Lowe’s Inc. Same story–the overage was to cover moving costs and should be wired to the moving company before they come to pick up. I asked for a contact name for the movers who would be picking up and ignored the fact that I never got one. I am feeling really foolish even though my instincts told me there were strange inconsistencies. I could rationalize all of them away on the basic notion that this is an honest person. My question now is what to do. Someone mentioned contacting the company the check was drawn on. How does one do that? Who do I contact at Lowe’s Inc.? I will go to my bank and the bank the check was drawn on to see if they can do any investigative work. Otherwise, I would appreciate concrete feedback.

By the way, here are the names they used:

Janet Gillian:
(jann.gill00l@gmail.com
Jeff (“her” “husband”) he actually
called me! Maybe I spoke to
the real “Janet”
James Carter, the moving agent
who signed “his” name Jeff
Jeff Moll whose name was on the
check from Lowe’s

“She” told me they were moving from NJ to “Jo’burg” and actually gave me both addresses so I could put them on my mailing list. I could quite understand why the check came from Lowe’s in North Carolina. (Red flag ignored!)

When I got her first email I googled her but couldn’t put anything together. I got to this site by googling “expresmover kings cross”

Thank you so much for all your comments. Any advice anyone can give me would help me regain a little confidence.

See more Art Scammers.

This year I finally relented and bought myself an iPod. It’s easily the best gadget I have ever bought and I really don’t know how I lived without one for 33 years! I love it because I can take my whole music collection anywhere, it shuts off the outside world while working in the studio, and when I’m at the PC I am always listening to podcasts and lectures.

The best podcasts haven’t necessarily been art podcasts either, they have been podcasts on the mind, nature, spirituality, and business. One podcast which I always look forward to listening to is All in the Mind by Natasha Mitchell.

In her latest episode (which can be downloaded Here, even if you hate music and don’t own an iPod yet) she talks about neuroesthetics and an exhibition at London’s Hayward gallery called Walking in My Mind.

Semir Zeki pioneered the field of neuroesthetics and says that scientists have a lot to learn from art, but artists have a lot less to learn from neuroscientists. And he says that we (artists) are mostly all neurologists in some sense.

It’s an interesting listen..

I always seem to have a giggle when I look through the keywords used to find Art News Blog. I mentioned vaginas on the pussy casting post a while ago and people came up with these creative vagina search terms..

painted vaginas
is vagina art
funny vaginas
how to draw a vagina
interesting looking vaginas
white vaginas
weird vaginas
big fat vaginas
fattest vagina
huge vaginas
small vaginas
5 different looking vaginas
black vaginas
boobs and vaginas
do black women have pink vaginas
are japensee women’s vaginas look different?
asian vaginas
fake vaginas
circumsized vaginas
show me sexy vaginas of women
i want vaginas
different colored vaginas
renaissance art why no vagina

and..

art pussy
painted pussies
and
why do pussies look so good?

Looking at the search terms using “nude” to find the blog are much more disturbing to say the least. People were looking for everything from nude 3 year old girls through to senior sex. I seriously do worry about the intentions of some searchers.

Mixing sport and art is a lot like mixing oil and water, jews and muslims, christians and atheists, or any other unlikely combination which doesn’t mix well. But like any generalization, it is often proven to be not entirely true. Sometimes a jew will marry a muslim, a christian will convert an atheist, and good art will be inspired by sport.

I think the sculpture of Dinni Kunoth Kemarre at the upcoming “Bush Football” exhibition (nothing to do with George W. or soccer) at the Mossenson Gallery, Melbourne proves me wrong; art and sport can mix.

Dinni Kunoth Kemarre
Footballer (Kangaroo)
acrylic on wood

Dinni Kunoth Kemarre
Footballer (Bomber)
acrylic on wood

Dinni Kunoth Kemarre
Footballer (Bomber)
acrylic on wood

Bush Football will be on display at 41 Derby Street, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia from Tuesday 18 August until Saturday 5 September, 2009. Mossenson Galleries website.

Ps.. this post has nothing to do with religion.