Artist apologises over abusive messages to fans on Facebook

ARTIST Graham Knuttel has issued an apology over an internet competition to win one of his works after claiming his Facebook page had become the target of a computer hacker.

The renowned Dublin- based artist was forced to apologise after fans who had entered the contest were subjected to abusive messages.

Knuttel had offered the prize of one of his pencil drawings through a competition hosted on his own Facebook page.

The winner is due to be the person who gets the most number of “likes” to messages posted on the artist’s page on the popular social networking internet site.

However, fans who posted messages on Knuttel’s Facebook site began to receive abusive messages over the weekend, while others reported that comments they had left on the page had been deleted.

Some entrants claimed that the insults had been posted by Knuttel while he was out socialising at night.

But the painter insisted that his Facebook page had become the target of an unknown computer hacker, although he described two of the people who had entered the competition as “yesterday’s men”.

The controversy sparked a large volume of posts by a number of Knuttel’s “friends” on the website.

Knuttel, whose distinctive paintings have been bought by Hollywood stars like Sylvester Stallone and Robert de Niro, has more than 4,300 people listed as his Facebook friends.

The artist felt obliged to apologise about the controversy yesterday although he also admitted that he found many of the comments “amusing and ridiculously funny”.

“I’m sorry if I offended a few people Friday night but you were giving me a rough time, implying that I was fiddling the votes,” remarked Knuttel in a message posted on his Facebook page.

However, he also revealed that he still had to finish the painting intended as the prize, adding, “whatever will happen to it”.