Aura(ful) Paintings

Today I was contacted by the Daily Gazette, New York, to comment on the performance art of Leiah Bowden, “lifelong meditator, intuitive artist and visionary”.

Leiah claims to see and paint people’s auras, “Energy Portraits”, meanwhile providing trance readings to her subjects.

I remarked that her paintings are about as paranormal as Picasso’s, but much less proficient:

“Leiah claims that her paintings are paranormal, and that she is in “Heaven, an altered state of consciousness” when she paints. It appears she’s confusing skill and imagination with paranormal ability. In a literal sense, her artworks are about as supernatural or mystical as anyone’s painting of a landscape or bowl of fruit, and based on ideas, rather than paranormal messages. Trance readings, like these “Energy Portraits”, are products of the artist’s imagination and creativity, with no basis in the paranormal.”

Claiming paranormal abilities allows faux artists to get away with producing really shitty ‘artworks’, affording them inflated sentimental value, and charging gallery prices…

Yep…looks like the crap ’Granny’s in Heaven now’ artwork that you finger painted in Kindergarten that Mommy proudly displayed on the fridge…