Painted with Oil - store in Las Vegas Mall selling Chinese art
I was helping an old friend work a trade show booth last week in Las Vegas and needed to bring something home for the kids, so I was walking the mall.
In the very back of the Mall was a store called "Painted in Oil." It is stuffed full of "original" oil paintings. The paintings seem to be sold by size and there were a whole bunch of canvases in there.
I should have taken notes about pricing, but it seems like $375 bought you a 3' X 2' piece, stretched on wood frame, with a painted, wrapped edge.
Anyone have any experience with "Painted in Oil." Some pieces looked similar to other works I have seen. Some were pretty good, but it sure seemed like a front for an art sweat shop, setup deep in some poor area in Asia, to me.
In the very back of the Mall was a store called "Painted in Oil." It is stuffed full of "original" oil paintings. The paintings seem to be sold by size and there were a whole bunch of canvases in there.
I should have taken notes about pricing, but it seems like $375 bought you a 3' X 2' piece, stretched on wood frame, with a painted, wrapped edge.
Anyone have any experience with "Painted in Oil." Some pieces looked similar to other works I have seen. Some were pretty good, but it sure seemed like a front for an art sweat shop, setup deep in some poor area in Asia, to me.
3 Comments:
These Chinese "original paintings" are mostly badly done, unauthorized ripoffs of legitimate original work. And yes, they're painted in sweatshops, which is how the prices can be so low.
These copyright abusers harm artists in several ways:
1. People who would love the better original painting never find out who the original was done by. That means they won't be able to track down other works by the same artist, and neither will others who view the copy.
2. Badly done copies are sometimes mistaken for original works, harming the reputation of the artist.
3. On sites like Ebay, the original work and limited editions have to compete against cheap copies. The photos are too small for buyers to see the difference. The artist loses income and the buyer winds up with a worthless, second rate copy.
4. Some malls that have signature gallery stores also now allow businesses that sell the cheaper uncredited copies. This directly harms the orginal artist's sales.
Several of my artist friends have been ripped off in this manner. Unfortunately, it's very difficult for them to stop the piracy. Ebay, for example, will shut down individual auctions, but not the seller. Store owners who sell this crap are deaf to the pleas of artists and their fans. The artists who are targeted are typically not wealthy enough to afford a court battle, and probably wouldn't win anyway, because the piracy exists in a gray area, legally speaking.
Thanks for being wary.
they are painted in sweat shop situations, and actually sold by the kilo (killograme) but to the painters who made them... it's the best they could do in the situation...
most of the art traded in my country, is of that veriety..and that bothers me.
what you do with boundless gallery..is a liberating alternative...
Yes, they are sweatshops where the painters make pennies. It is horrible. I have my work ripped off all of the time on sites like eBay. I VERO (turn them in) to eBay and they remove the offending auctions. But goodness only knows how many of my paintings get copied and distributed to places like this mall place. I warn my buyers all of the time about this sort of thing.
I feel for the people of China and other Asian countries. I know many are very poor and the opportunity to paint and make an income for your family overrides the fact that it is illegal to copy other artist's work.
It is things like this, poison in dog food, toxic material in medicines imported from China, etc. that have made me try as hard as I can to only buy American. Masterpiece canvas made in the USA. Acrylica paints made in USA and Canada for me.
The bottom line is Americans want cheap EVERYTHING. Until Americans wake up and start supporting their own country, this sort of crime will continue.
S
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