Artist claims indecent pictures of children were art

An artist, whose work has been displayed at The Tate, has claimed that
indecent pictures of children found on his computer were "work in
progress", and not child pornography.

Telegraph.co.uk, UK: 21 October 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6399501/Artist-claims-inde
cent-pictures-of-children-were-art.html
[ http://tinyurl.com/yk8k2lg ]

Graham Ovenden, 67, was found with indecent pictures in the file on
his PC and despite trying to delete it and said they were to be used
for an art work, a court heard.

Mr Ovenden is a painter, fine art photographer and writer, who has
displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Tate and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

But officers found 16 separate images Mr Ovenden had created and 121
other indecent images stored in files in his computer's memory, the
court heard.

Officers found the files when they raided his Gothic mansion in
Cornwall and Ovenden admits he made the images on his computer.

But Mr Ovenden - whose major works feature young girls - says the
pictures were all being used to create an "end product" for artistic
display.

Mr Ovenden does not deny making the images but has pleaded not guilty
to 34 different child porn offences.

Ramsay Quaife, prosecuting, at Truro Crown Court, said: "What the
police found was a graphic application called Adobe Photoshop, and its
the use of the file browser in this programme to view the images which
led to the cache files being created.

"You can be sure that the copy of the images in the cache is the same
as the image made by Mr Ovenden - he was making these images, and a
virtual trace or footprint was left on the computer.

"Through what the experts found on the computer and through admissions
of the defendant, you can be quite sure the defendant was making
indecent images on this computer."

Officers raided Mr Ovenden's home in November 2006 and Mr Quaife says
he immediately admitted they were his pictures.

He said: "When first asked about the images, Mr Ovenden said they were
deliberately intended so we should find them, and that he had been
working on his creations for about a year.

"He added 'I am totally responsible in every way'. Mr Ovenden said to
police, 'the process of the image making is actually to create
corruption, then overlay corruption'."

The court heard in police interview Ovenden then quoted Shakespeare's
Hamlet to explain why he made the images.

Mr Quaife said: "He told officers, 'it is but skin and film, an
ulcerus place, while rank corruption lies within'.

"But what the crown say is that there can be no doubt that these
images are indecent - indecent pseudo images are indecent.

"By the means of modern technology, pretty much anyone can have a
virtual studio on their computer - and he was busy making thoroughly
indecent images on that computer."

Robert Linford, defending, argued his client had the images as a means
to create his famous artwork.

He says his client had shown completed work to officers which appeared
to show the image of a young girl, with words of poetry superimposed
over the image.

Mr Linford said: "My client repeatedly wrote to the police and showed
them these images of his final pieces of work.

"It would have been in rather flowery artistic language, but 'look,
here are the final prints, this is the final product'.

"He has repeatedly argued that the images seized from him were very
much a work in progress, and that these were the final outcomes, the
prints were the finished products."

Mr Ovenden has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of making indecent
images of children, and 16 counts of making indecent sudo photographs
of children.

He is also charged with two counts of possessing 121 indecent
photographs and "pseudo photographs" of children.

In 1975 Ovenden founded the artistic movement the 'Brotherhood of
Ruralists' with then-wife Jann Haworth and fellow artists Graham
Arnold and David Inshaw.

Mr Ovenden was born in Hampshire and attended Itchen Grammar School
and the Royal College of Music before taking up painting around 1962.

He was tutored by Lord David Cecil and Sir John Betjeman and attended
the Southampton School of Art, and graduated from the Royal College of
Art in 1968.

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