Stolen Innocence Painting

This painting I felt compelled to make to speak about a current art crime. As a whole, the African-American style of art was always overlooked and considered an outsider style. For years, when you saw any style of art, it was the glorious European artworks that have inspired the world many times over. The problem is for a very long time there were no representation of our people, and if you found an artwork, it was portrayed by another race that showed us in a negative light. However, with a lot of effort there were trail blazers old and new that have been fighting to move our art and stories to the forefront. Over the years African-American art has become a popular commodity, and the world has been responding more and more to the artworks. It is a great time to be an African-American artist, and we must do our best to represent our people for the future and continue to make the best art we can. Unfortunately, the buzz has made this type of art a target for art forgers, scams and thieves. Famous art forger Ken Perenyi stated the lack of oversight and documents would make it easy to make forgeries.