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BY ALLISON RUPPINO
MTV's "Jersey Shore" housemates Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino have expanded their image from TV and magazines to canvas. One Canadian artist, Celeste Gillis, specializes in portraiture and captured Snooki's poof and The Situation's abs perfectly in her newest paintings.
These reality stars were so impressed by their acrylic transformations they each wanted Gillis' artwork, so the artist contacted New Jersey's Celebrity Magnet, Tom Murro, to give him the exclusive update on how vastly different each star handled the situation.
Gillis created Snooki's image entitled, "Girl With The Hoop Earring," as part of a portrait show she put together November 10th in Toronto. As a last minute idea, she posted the image to Snooki's Facebook fan page, not anticipating a response from the star herself.
"Needless to say, I was completely surprised when close to 2 a.m. on November 1st, I received a comment from Snooki herself saying, ‘OMG, did u paint this? i want this in my house now,'" said Gillis.
The artist received an e-mail shortly after from Snooki's father, Andy Polizzi, expressing an interest in purchasing it as a 23rd birthday present for his daughter. The piece, hanging in Gillis' Toronto show, was immediately sent to New York to be presented at her birthday party.
"I don't want to disclose pricing out of respect for my client, but I think that I gave him a pretty good deal on a painting that took up several weeks to complete," said Gillis. "Andy was lovely to deal with, and treated me in a very professional manner, paying me promptly and suggesting that I send him business cards for future contacts, which I did."
Snooki's family handled the situation properly, but The Situation literally did not handle his at all. Her dealings with this multi-million dollar, self-acclaimed "Guido" were not as fortunate. After experiencing such success with the Snooki portrait, Gillis went ahead and contacted him through his personal Facebook including a photo of the painting.
She inquired if he wanted the painting, and he wrote back, "Painting is pretty cool, interested, are giving it or trying to sell to me?" This is where the doubt started to settle in.
"I was a little shocked at this, considering his high salary, and that I was offered the painting for the cost of a few tanning sessions," said Gillis. "Despite this, I decided that the potential exposure would be worth swallowing the insult, so I offered him the painting for either money or a barter for advertising my web site. He never contacted me again."
It was assumed the deal was not taking place after their brief conversation. So, it was to Gillis' surprise when she saw The Situation had posted the photo of the painting on his Facebook with the title, "THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND." The image had no listing of her name to give her any credit for her own painting, and he did nothing to ask for her permission for this to occur.
Gillis was furious, but felt she could not do anything about it. There is a certain underlying "artist's code" that The Situation had violated by using someone else's artwork without giving her credit. "I guess they don't teach you these things in the dance clubs," said Gillis.
Then again, The Situation seems to violate any preceding codes as seen on the show when he goes "creeping" around trying to steal the women away from his other housemates. In both situations, he "committed the robbery."
It's an ugly painting but I'm guessing it was probably meant to be. In that case good job.
To the person who mentioned my posters, I decided to take them down for a couple of reasons. One as JM said that I had about 30 people in the first hour of the TMZ article try to friend me on facebook -- I am now out of public searches. The second because upon request from the buyers I've opted out of reproduction. It has also been removed from my personal sites and blogs. (Also, I don't expect you to understand words like "giclee" but there is an expensive quality of print beyond regular posters that use archival ink and ph balanced papers).
As well, everything you see on both of my websites has sold, or was commissioned in the first place. "Commissioned" as in, somebody requested the art service of me - I know, it's a big word. It would be nice to get more exposure from all this publicity, but it was more a matter of getter my story out and standing up for the little guy(girl), especially with all of my friends who have been f**ked over and taken advantage of in the art world.
For my stalker I'm kind of weirded out. How do you think you know all the intimate details of my life and success based on a 4 sentence blurb on TMZ?
Anyways, I am going to continue to take the advice of not reading the message boards and void my personal site of Jersey Shore related links entirely (for now). If anyone wants to have a mature discussion on art, my purpose behind the stupid painting (or the Snooki one that I rather like) feel free to contact me in an adult, openminded way.
Also I was never suing anyone for copyright. I was asked "Are you planning to take legal action" and in response I joked that he probably wouldn't understand copyright anyways. My words were twisted in a tabloid! Is that surprising??
For now to umm "haters" I guess, you can claim your fame by being the heros who managed to get a response from the artist who got a response from "The Situation". Way to go! For my friends and supporters thank you, always.
Humbly Yours,
Celeste
And stop it like she is some sort of martyr, she paints pictures and then spams. And when she forwards the story to tmz she get suspicious erasing all traces of her unsolicited SPAM selling cheap crappy posters for $60 dollars. It is what it is, but if you wish to keep up the "she got to many friends requests" go right ahead like her "art", no one buys it.
Stop it with the nonsense, she didnt seem concerned about how many "friends requests" she got when she constanly spamed the casts facebooks and mailed tmz conversations with screen shots. One one think an "artists" would want many people to see her "art". But yeah stick to your story .
The painting is supposed to be cartoonish/funny. It was a joke for an art show. Anyone who thinks otherwise or who thinks it's supposed to be realism is an idiot. The fact that he didn't realize it was making fun of him just makes it all the more brilliant. She's been doing commissions for years and has been quite successful with it.
Also "The Situation" was composed of several photo and video references, not copied from a picture, so maybe you should figure out what you're talking about before making accusations.
Also, there is no copyright battle, it's just something stupid that TMZ threw in to stir up shit. The whole issue is that it's rude to post someone's work without giving them credit.
And stop removing posts that speak the truth.