Florida Police & FBI Involved.
Martine Genicot is a Naïve artist living in the USA. She has long been associated with MisterDenham.com, and is very supportive of our National Museum Project. Her paintings can be seen on our Links page, and she has contributed limited edition prints for our archival collection, and the film documentary.
We were delighted, therefore, when she told us of her forthcoming solo exhibition in Paris, organized by her US gallery – Evans Wall.
Not long after we posted the item on MisterDenham.com, however, Martine emailed us about her increasing concerns over the way her gallery was treating her in New York, as she prepared for the exhibition.
She found it difficult to pin down the owner, Evans Wall, or get any commitment on precise dates, shipping details, publicity etc. She was hoping to fit in a visit to meet the New British Naives in London, on her way through to Paris.
Martine began forwarding me copies of the emails that Evans Wall were sending her, to see if I could make sense of the situation, and learn from it. Mervyn Clingan and I were just beginning to understand the picture, when out of the blue, another artist from the same gallery contacted her with an even more bizarre story.
Although the details were different, it was based on similar promises of international recognition and saleroom activity, by the same Mr.Evans Wall, who also goes under the name of Dr.Willow Bota.
Altogether this Evans Wall character, who turns out to be almost a will-o-the-wisp figure, has collectively duped some seven artists from the USA, Canada and Germany. Nobody seems able to meet him face to face, and when an artist requests a meeting, he claims last-minute unforeseen circumstances force him to cancel.
This even went as far as one gallery owner from Germany flying over to Florida for a tour round one of his prestigious non-existent galleries, only to find Evans Wall was called away on urgent business on the way to the airport to meet her!
Being a resourceful woman, she nevertheless tried to find his business address, and even enlisted the help of the local post office. Everything turned out to be bogus –including the registration address for his website.
Furious, she began private investigations from Germany. Evans Wall had even claimed to third parties that she was his wife and European gallery partner.
Evans Wall is at one and the same time an artist and owner of a string of exclusive art galleries in New York, Florida, Paris and Germany, none of which exist. He is a bogus lawyer, and uses this guise to threaten his artists to produce work on contract, which then mysteriously disappears on FEDEX shipping documents bearing false tracking numbers, and a pack of lies.
He has a fictitious business lifestyle of yachts, overseas trips, different wives, and a complex network of email addresses for the various characters that make up his imaginary international staff.
Bit of a bounder really, but the artists are on his case in a big way. They banded together and exchanged all the information they had each collected about the man’s unforgivable activities, and a huge picture of deception, international theft and impersonation has emerged.
I suggested to Martine that this scenario would make a powerful piece of documentary – an irate group of unstoppable female artists on two continents, fighting for justice against a will o’the wisp art scam merchant, chased by the FBI.
My email files are thick with the whole story as it has developed over the last few months, and although Martine is currently in France for the summer, resting after the emotional strain of the sad, sorry affaire, the Florida Police and the FBI are very much involved in her absence.
As the story develops, we’ll keep you posted, but be warned – have nothing to do with Evans Wall or Dr.Willow Bota. And be very careful if you are approached through the Internet by anyone who claims to be an exclusive gallery owner. Especially if he dotes on your work, and offers you exhibition deals that seem like the answer to a prayer.
They may well be, but not yours. You may naively become the answer to his!
In additional note of warning: We frequently get emails from exhibition companies in Spain and Italy, with offers to participate in international group exhibitions. There are significant costs involved, and the companies are often difficult to verify, or track down. So beware. Cura dat Victorian.