When an invitation to painter Cara Ober's upcoming exhibition at Randall Scott Gallery in Washington landed on our desk the other day, we couldn't help noticing the show's title: I am who I pretend to be.

Wondering whether the exhibit might be a riposte to fellow artist Christine Bailey, who sparked a mini-controversy last month when she exhibited paintings in a downtown office building that mimicked Ober's style, we called Ober's dealer.

"It has no bearing on the show," insisted Scott regarding the exhibit's title. He noted that Ober's show had been scheduled for almost a year. "There’s gonna be some catch words in some of the paintings, but most of those were all in place before all this even started," Scott said. "Even the word plagiarize is in there, but it was done last year."

Scott said the main fallout from last month's dust-up was that it distracted Ober at a critical moment.

"We would have been much happier if it hadn’t happened," he said. "Cara was working on the show, and it took her attention from work in the studio; she had to deal with this for three weeks when she should have been painting. It didn’t hurt her as an artist, because her work stands." 

But won't the publicity help his artist's career in the long run?

"We’re not pushing the controversy thing," Scott said. "It’s kind of a non-issue. It wasn't even mentioned in the press release, because we feel it’ll blow over."

However, Scott conceded that, in principle, the reasoning behind Bailey's imitating another artist might have been valid had it been done differently. "Actually, it’s an interesting idea for a show, but it wasn’t carried through fully enough," he said. "It would have been a much better show if the artist had gone after several other people as well. and it wouldn't have caused half the ruckus it did."

Sun Photo of Cara Ober by Algerina Perna