But following a police raid on his studio he was charged with 16 counts of making indecent images and one of possessing an indecent image of a child. Speaking after the hearing Ovenden, of Bodmin, Cornwall, defended his work and accused the police of being ''transfixed by childhood sexuality''. He said: ''Don't forget we are all born into this world naked and we leave nothing behind but the things we produce.
''A lot has been made of my young nudes work. But it is really a small part of my output. I have a large and varied collection of important work. If you had asked people at the time if it was pornographic they would have laughed at you. It seems to me that police are totally and utterly transfixed by childhood sexuality.
A quick Google image search.
''I suppose some of my work is shocking. What I am painting and what I am taking pictures of is shocking but I have no interest in what people say about me. I have a lot of very loyal supporters. Likewise, there are a lot of people who think I am the most outrageous pervert. I don't have a live television, I don't have the internet, a car or a mobile telephone. I think that makes me a pretty poor example of a paedophile.''
Ovenden denied all charges before the case was thrown out, and said he had hoped a full trial would reveal the nature of his work and clear his name. He said: ''Common sense would say to you that an image of a child nude is simply a beautiful image. The pornography is in the eye of a person looking at it should they feel that way. It is not in the eye of the creator - not this creator, anyway.''
8 comments:
I'm afraid that this time I'll have to agree with the police. Ovenden's work is far too close to child pornography for comfort, more so than e.g. Hans Bellmer's.
While 'the image of a nude child' may well be 'a beautiful image', it certainly isn't all that simple. And if 'the pornography is in the eye of a person looking at it, should they feel that way', I'd suggest that Mr Ovenden's eye is pretty pornographic, judging by the way he renders what he sees. It's his choice to sexualise the images of young girls, rather than presenting them in a different light, or from a different perspective.
i Fully agree with you stray, we have boundarys in culture for a reason and not sexualising our youth should be remained one of them.
Food for thought ( i am not trying to start a debate here, just pointing out ), i find it interesting with all the anti-catholic comments on this site the last couple of days regarding the recent scandals (which like most ppl, i am shocked and appalled at ) i am surprised that this topic hasnt had many at comment on it.
Hey it is ART! And in Art- everything is allowed.
...... *DONT_KNOW* *DONT_KNOW* *DONT_KNOW*
Anti-catholic comments? You shouldn't use that argument when it comes to pedophilia.
As to Ovenden, I totally agree with him. Child pornography is banned cause children actually are hurt in the process. Drawing anything is not a crime. I mean I guess it may be arousing or disgusting for some, but its not a crime either. Any possible harm I see is advocating for, or promoting child pornography this way, but again, it's like prosecuting someone for making a game about killing.
If you remove a fence, do you not ask why the fence is there in the first place.
Most artists I know make art just to question and to make people think about why the fence is there in the 1st place...
I believe that google should never post nude photos of young children under the age of 18 in thier searches,or any other search engine
To pass this off as art is an affront to basic laws of decency and to the very notion that the work is in any way artistic. It's nothing more than sick depravity.
I find it very strange that he operates a computer and yet states he doesn't have internet access. What an extraordinarily weird thing to assert. In this day and age, everyone, especially someone who purports to be in the field he alleges that he is associated with would have internet access.
It is my view that each and every one of these children have been abused. They were too young to give their consent and where the bloody hell were the parents? Good grief!
And for this horrible excuse of a human being to excuse himself by pushing the blame onto the shoulders of the police. Really?
For those knowledgable about the Savile's of this planet, it is a typical ploy of the psychopathic paedofile to not accept responsibility for his actions.
It makes me sick to the pit of my stomach that these images are available online or in someone's house in a book or on the wall.
What has our society come to when this sort of disgusting stuff is condoned? For goodness sake, enough is enough!
People should be standing up and fighting to prevent this. I'm all for a free society but as has already been stated, when you draw a line in the sand and you cross it, especially when it comes to our most precious and vulnerable children, then the proverbial should hit the fan and action taken that rather than promotes this illegal activity, acts to deter future paedo's from ever thinking it's ok to draw or snap a photograph of a young child in a way which even suggests the mere breaking of a law, let alone obvious ones that this imbecile has broken.
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