01 In Search of the Missing Artist | The sculptor

ABC. This podcast contains audio advertising. To hear it without ads, head to the ABC Listen app now. ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Prices shift, petrol jumps, shares fall. A company cuts jobs and suddenly the business story is everyone's story. I'm Alan Collar. I'm Carrington Clark from Monday to Thursday on ABC Business Daily. We break down the biggest stories in business, finance, and the economy and why they matter. Then on Fridays I'll go deeper on that business, the people making decisions, taking risks and shaping where the economy goes next. Find it all in the ABC Business Daily feed on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Is that Michael right for you? Yeah, I think right, right? Cool, if you need a changer, you can just twist the thing. Yeah, no, we're good. We're in biz. Okay, great. All right, what's wrong? Julia Bergen. Madison Cunorton. Great to have you in the background briefing studio. It's good to be here. This is your first background briefing story. It is number one. Okay, so the series is called in search of the missing artist. That's right. I know a little bit about the story. Have you been aavesdropping? I have heard you making some phone calls on this story over the last couple of months. I've been working very hard. Inside voice is not my forte. That's fair enough, yep. I've picked up a few things. Is this story something about the art world? That's correct. Okay. Is it something about the plastics industry? It is. And the other thing is maybe there's something to do with France. Bingo. Okay, I'm very intrigued to know how these things all fit together. Do you want to tell us where do you start? Where else? Five-star hotel. Of course. Okay, paint a pusher for us. So I'm standing in the shadow of a giant stone plimp. Surveying the ground floor of this five-star hotel. It's called the Fullerton Hotel. Okay. And it's in the centre of Sydney. It's all very grand, you know, you've got. Consierge, velvet furnishings, big archways. There's even a grand piano in the foyer. It's the perfect place to meet a source. Meeting a source in a five-star hotel. It's very, you know, very journalism. Very journalism, little bit detective. My source is called Simon Dullhuntty and he phoned a couple of days ago and then followed up with this text to tell me that he had some information about a story that I was looking into. Hi, Julia. It's Simon calling regarding the studio gallery. He's talking about an art gallery. I understand you've been asking around and I've got a lot of knowledge about the facts and would like to catch up for a coffee or tea in the next couple of days. I'm in Sydney. I say yes. I confirm his full name and organise a time to meet him. I don't ask who he is. I don't ask how he heard about me or what he knows about the story. Why not? Well, the story's generated a lot of anxiety and so the last thing I want to do is spook him. But I do my due diligence. I call around. I find out that Simon's a former journalist, former media executive and according to his LinkedIn, he's now a media adviser. At the time, his profile doesn't say for who. So I'm curious. I've got a lot of questions that I want to ask Simon and as I'm sort of waltzing through the foyer of this very grand hotel, I'm feeling confident that hopefully he might be able to provide me some of those answers. Well, I say Simon, he hasn't seen me yet, so I'll take this opportunity to quickly describe him. He's wearing a very crisp blue shirt and suit pants. No tie. There's no mention that this is an off the record meeting, but I switch off my mic. I don't know what Simon's going to say, but the moment it's done, I leave and I walk at pace about 200 meters down the road to side. All right, the middle of the footpath is going to have to do and I just recount everything into my phone. All right, I'm just going to do a voice note because Simon is not there to give me information. Is that a give me a warning? So I sit down and he basically says, "Fresh off the bat and let me just be super clear. I'm very close to the art world. I'm married to an artist. I know the drill. I know that there's allegiances." Simon's waving around a thick part of paper. He says, "I've got sworn statements. I've got affidavits." He tells me there's a heavy-handed legal response coming my way if I pursue this and he's flicking through the pages theatrically as he's talking to me. He basically said the more that this unravels, the more damage it does. This meeting didn't come out of nowhere. For months, I've been investigating the sudden appearance of a mysterious French artist in the Australian art market. His name is Jean-Paul Margin. Jean-Paul Margin and Simon knows a thing or two about him. He tells me. JPM, Jean-Paul Margin is real. I've spoken to the person and he said, "Jean-Paul Margin has suffered incredible stress." By this point, I realise Simon is no whistleblower. No, he's here on behalf of one of Australia's most aggressive defamation law firms. He's actually their media guy and he's meeting me to pass on a message from a few of their clients, the artist himself and his gallery in Australia. Studio Gallery Group. And that message is really simple. Back off the story and stop asking questions about the internationally acclaimed artist Jean-Paul Margin. So Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul Margin. So Jean-Paul Margin, I'm going to get that at some point. As we go through this story, there's going to be all sorts of botch pronunciations of Mouljard, we're going to have mangan, mangan, mangin. My own included, I'm sure. Mine too. Okay, so that's his name, but who is he? According to What's Online, Jean-Paul Margin is a sculptor artist. French, his studio is based in Paris and he exhibits and sells worldwide. In 2021, he's introduced to the Australian market by a local gallery, Studio Gallery Group. This artist Jean-Paul Margin, he creates these beautiful sculptural works in Persex or what is essentially a sheet of plastic PMMA plastic. It's 2026 and this is the first time I'm seeing a Jean-Paul Margin in real life. It's a little noisy because I'm standing on a Melbourne street and it's blowing an absolute game. So windy. The greatest risk to us is a hurricane right now. Yeah. It is seriously windy. Absolutely. It's like a real sense of urgency. What's the pathetic fallacy where it's like the weather matches the drama? I'm with a young woman called Eliza Merle, who knows Jean-Paul Margin's work well and she's going to tell me what she was told to tell prospective buyers. The two of us appearing through a big shop front window into a gallery space. The reason we're not inside is because I've been banned from entering. But the Jean-Paul is easy to see. It's like a smaller Jean-Paul in the green. Yeah, they always have a Jean-Paul in this gallery, like from what I've seen. It's dark green, slightly transparent, titled La Grazon, number 066, about a metre long and it's selling for just under $7.5,000. His size range can really go up to as wide as two metres and as well it is potential that if you have a very specific colour or more shape or size in mind, we can communicate with the artist and do a commissioned work. As Eliza tells me, the Jean-Paul's come in all sorts of colours and finishes. There's another smaller metallic gold one sitting on a plinth in the window. This one's called 'Metal Mew'. I can't help thinking they look like giant, brightly coloured, crumpled post-it notes. But I want more than just visuals. I want Eliza to tell me about the man behind them. He's brilliant, he's internationally critically acclaimed for his work. He has been with Studio Gallery for a few years now and he has done incredibly well with his representation with the gallery. Eliza knows her stuff as any good gallery should. She's sold these before. He's collected by a lot of people in Australia and internationally that are really interested in interior design. She tells me about the art and the artist, materials, method, meaning, backstory. He designs all of his sculptures himself and yeah, he's been really successful with the gallery so far. But she's not here to sell me this Jean-Paul piece. It's been almost two years since Eliza worked for Studio Gallery Group. But this spiel, it's baked into her brain. She's practicing out of Paris and his artworks. Ship to us from Paris. And this spiel is where Jean-Paul Margeau's project is. problems really start. Clients would want more information and I just couldn't provide it. - If we go back to 2023, Eliza Merleys 26 years old, she's in charge of operations and logistics at Studio Gallery Group's Cheltenham Space. So Studio Gallery is spread across five Australian galleries, three in Victoria, one in New South Wales and one in Queensland. The Cheltenham Space is in Melbourne's southeast. Eliza has a very big job. The gallery's representing around 100 artists and its her responsibility to have eyes over everything that goes in and out of the gallery. Her role involves dealing with couriers, framers, buyers, artists, staff, managers, everyone. - Wow, that sounds like a huge job. - Huge job. - So how does Jean Paul come into her story? Jean Paul comes into her frame quite quickly because he's a bestseller for the gallery. - It was often coming across my desk that like, okay, this one needs to be packed up and sent out or like gotten ready to be sent to the buyer and his works always played like a really key role in the curation of our gallery. So he was always hanging in on the walls. So not all artists would be up at all times. - No, so often at Cheltenham, we'd have a sort of rotating curation in the front of the gallery of what was like selling well at that time. So that if anyone did just sort of have a walk into the gallery they could see like, bestseller's kind of straightaway. - Yeah. - Okay, so John Paul was a bestseller. - Yeah, yeah, he was doing really well, yeah. - The problem is the more interest there is, the more information people want, where he's exhibited, where overseas, which international galleries tell me more about him. And she just can't because she can't find anything. If you're having it in your home, you want to be able to have a little spiel that you might give your guests and you can sort of say, oh, it represents this or this and you know, or it's actually inspired by this. And the artist said this about it. It's about this part of their life. And I just literally couldn't find any examples of where he had exhibited before and any presence of him online whatsoever, which I thought was really unusual. I wanted to double check that. So I did my own troll. And when you Google John Paul Morjan, the first thing that pops up is a profile on Studio Gallery Group's website. It's basically a picture library of his works. So row after row of these colored sculptures, white, brown, green, yellow, orange, you name it. All French words for titles. The prices for each range from two to $10,000. And when you click on one of the artworks, there's no photo of their creator, John Paul Morjan. But there is his bio. And this is what it said at the time, Eliza was working for the gallery. So I just read it. - But it's just read it out. - Yeah, read out what it says. Internationally acclaimed and collected French sculpturist. That's hard to say. John Paul Manguin's work largely draws from his own intimate and emotional experiences of life. The artist feels the translation and physical embodiment of his. So this is all the information that Eliza has on John Paul, even though she works for the gallery that represents him. In terms of who he is, pretty much. He's French, working in Paris, and internationally acclaimed. So none of those other things, no list of places he's exhibited, no list of big collectors who hold him in their collections, no list of galleries that hold him in their collections, nothing, nothing that I can find. When you look online, he's got no social media, no LinkedIn, no website. There's no mention of him before 2021. And as far as I can tell, he doesn't exist online before that. Every art job that I've had, every artist that I've worked with or known has a public presence online. And that's kind of, you know, the name of the game, right? Like you want people to be able to access your work and find out about you and your practice. And so it was highly unusual that he didn't have a website, he didn't have anything online, apart from what was linked to Studio Gallery. And he, you know, not even an Instagram or anything that was able to build his public presence. And that was just, yeah, incredibly unusual to me. And any mention of him after 2021 is coming from Studio Gallery Group or one of its directors. There's a lot of social media posts about him, but nothing from him. A much awaited shipment from Paris, seductive sculptural works from Jean-Paul Manjon have now arrived worth the wait. Magnificent work coming through from the Parisian studio of Jean-Paul Manjon. A massive art crash on Parisian sculpturalist Jean-Paul Manjon. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. Hashtag from Paris with love. From Paris with love. Four words. So simple and romantic. It's details like these that stick with a lise up. But the problem is they don't seem to match up with what she's seeing inside the gallery. And it's not just her. I've actually spoken with 10 people who worked at Studio Gallery Group, including one who was there right at the time. Jean-Paul's work started to appear. I had just arrived to Australia. I've been looking for work for a couple of months. This is Molly, although that's not her real name. She wants to put this period of her life behind her. What I can tell you about her is that she predates a lise up. She also works in the Melbourne Gallery and she also manages artwork. And when she starts, it all seems very glamorous. I hadn't ever really worked in the commercial art world before, so it was like new and bright and shiny. Having a job in the art world, which is what I studied, was in my mind like a dream role. She's inspired by the gallery and the woman in charge of it, Carrie Armstrong, who's also a painter. And Carrie's artwork basically has the top spot of the Studio Gallery Group website. Just to clarify, this is not Carrie Armstrong, the Australian actor, different Carrie Armstrong. From the bat, Carrie interviewed me and she propositioned it as like a family run business, which they all heavily involved in. And we might seem a bit funny sometimes, but that's just how we operate kind of thing. Molly also works closely with Carrie's husband, Michael Armstrong. He does all the finances and he also moves a lot of the artwork, so kind of operates as a bit of a career as well, where he's required. And then there's Carrie's daughter, her name's Lauren Elise, and she's in charge of sales and curation. Pretty soon Jean Paul enters the frame. We were told that they were signing on this new artist, Jean Paul Mungin and Mungan, I'm even not a pronounceable. And these sculptures just appeared in the gallery, supposedly from France, Paris, was where he was practicing. But from the get-go, the way they arrive is odd. Michael would come into the gallery with them like half-rapped and bubble wrap, keeping in mind that these artworks are going to be sold on for like 10K a pop and just put them on the ground. There wasn't a lot of like care for something that was supposedly being shipped from overseas. Shipment after shipment in nothing but bubble wrap. No box, no padding, no shipping labels, no consignment notices, no tax declaration forms, just bubble wrap. I asked Molly how artworks normally arrive. If it's a rolled up artwork then in a tube with bubble wrap and protective sleeves or whatever, and then if it's a sculpture in a wooden nailed box with padding on the inside. And same game for international shipments. Yeah. And how did these ones come? Just bubble wrap. I mean is that standard practice? No. So that's what Molly described to you. Did Eliza see these works coming in in just bubble wrap too? Same game for Eliza. So Jean Paul's would arrive normally delivered by Michael. They come in our studio gallery van and often just sort of wrapped in one layer of bubble wrap and often it looked like you know, a recycled bubble wrap. And they would also arrive without any hanging mechanism normally. So that would mean that myself and Michael would often just sort of take a look at the works and decide where we wanted to put like a hook or a hole in the piece so that we could hang it on the wall. Let me show you a photo of what it looks like inside. Oh my god. Okay, so it's just literally bubble wrap this entire room. Yeah, that's how Jean Paul's works were coming. So this is like a small windowless room. Maybe it's like a storage room or something. And it's just full of bubble wrap. The whole image is just piled up bubble wrap. But it looks like there's a few, what look like Jean Paul Majean that works poking out. It's a bit of a spot the Jean Paul. And then there looks like there's sort of stickers on some of it. Did you say that? Yeah. Yeah, if you zoom in on that, just have a look at what those labels say. There's one that says JMA232. Jean Paul Mergeart 232. So that's the artwork code. Right. And so this is how you know these are Jean Paul's artwork. That's right. And when I showed this to various workers, they said, oh, yep. That's our storage room. That's how they would come. OK, so this is over a period of years that these works are coming in just wrapped in bubble wrap. Are they arriving damaged? No, the material that they're made out of, it's basically plastic that's a few millimeters thick. It's really strong stuff, but it does scratch quite easily. And if you put a lot of weight on top of it, it can snap. But it's not the only thing Molly notices that seems weird. Kerry seems to be able to get these pieces to the gallery really quickly. If there was someone who wanted a sculpture, but they didn't have the right color or size or something or someone wanted a custom made, a commission piece, she would be like, oh, OK, brilliant. I'll talk to Jean Paul my gun and get that organised for you. And then, like, miraculously, a week later, the sculpture would just arrive at the gallery and it's meant to be shipped from Barry. How long typically would an international shipment take? Oh, Mike. Anywhere between three to six weeks, maybe? I don't know. And these were coming a lot quicker than that. A week seems very fast. It is. And that's for a commission piece. If we're talking about Jean Paul's regular artworks, Molly tells me they just sort of turn up out of the blue unannounced. Sometimes it's an odd piece here or there. Other times it's in bulk, but it's always a surprise when they arrive. And that's a problem for a gallery that's dealing with over 100 artists because they need to know which works are going to come in and went. Usually, every artist would have had to submit their works and get their works accepted before sending them to the gallery. Otherwise, we'd just end up with like 50 paintings at a time from one artist who's just flogging their stuff off, being like, yeah, please make me money, it's sounders for me. And then we'd get them and be like, oh, we actually only want two of these. There's a system in place to ensure that doesn't happen. Studio Gallery Group uses software called ArtGalleria. Not all art galleries use it, but most have something similar to this. And it basically means they can track the ID of a painting or an artwork wherever it goes. If it moves between their galleries in New South Wales and Victoria, they can follow it. And so the typical process is that an artist will submit their works in advance. There's a bit things like title, dimensions, material, any other information that's ultimately required to sell that particular piece. All of that needs to come before the artwork is shipped. And according to StarFile I spoke to, that wasn't happening for Jean-Paul's works. At the beginning, his things were submitted through the portal. But then after a while, they weren't. And his artworks would appear in the gallery. And then I would have to document, photograph, measure, check the back of the sculpture to see if there was a spot that was flat enough. And then Michael would drill a hole in the back of the sculpture to then mount it on the wall. And then I would have to upload all of this information for each individual artwork on the back end of art gallery. So is any part of that process normal for a typical artist? Like if you were dealing with somebody else that's not from Paul Mengen, is it standard practice to have to do all the photography, that measuring, installation? No. It is possible that Jean-Paul Margeau is just a very hands-off artist. But that narrative starts to fray when I meet another former studio gallery group worker. Someone who deals directly with the artist. Someone who also speaks French. Right. Dolebell. Hello! Hello, how you going? How are you? Good. Shall we take my shoes off? No, no, you're so fine. You sure? I love this app. How are you? This is Abby. But for the same reasons as Molly, we're not using her real name. She's bright and bubbly and moves at pace, mustering a cup of tea and telling me about her latest culinary adventure. I actually just finished a little Lebanese cucumber lunch. Oh, you did. I did. But her demeanor changes as we move into the lounge room. Sorry, I'm like shaking. I just get really nervous. Working at Studio Gallery Group is not a time of her life, but Abby particularly enjoys talking about. She was young, but her job was to deal with artists and buyers. It was a really sales heavy environment. Carrie was always pushing sales, always super enthusiastic, trying to create massive momentum within the gallery. Jean-Paul Masha is selling well, and that means his inbox is busy. Every time we sell an artist artwork, we email them, letting them know. And there was an email for Jean-Paul, like a Gmail account. She emails him. Telling Jean-Paul, he sold a piece. Usually I'm really excited to hear back from an artist, because it's like, hey, I sold your work. It's like telling someone it's their birthday or something, and they're like, oh my god, amazing. And you're like, yeah, how great. I just didn't get any response. It's strange, but soon becomes frustrating, because Abby has other questions for Jean-Paul. And these ones do need answers, because it's about the titles of his works. Jean-Paul's pieces have a little bit of a naming convention. It's a French word, loosely connected to the color of the piece, and then a number. I actually enlisted my executive producer, because she's French speaking, to help me with the pronunciation of these. So, for example, white is papier. - Papier. - Papier. - Not papier. - Papier. - Papier. - Yes. - Okay. Dark brown. - Casanade. - Perfect. - Gold. Metal mu. - Mu. - Mu. - Yes, metal mu. - Metal mu. - Dark green. La grason. - Almost right. It's like, la grason. - La grason. - La grason. - Grazon. - Yes. - Sometimes they would do like, metal mu five. And I'm like, that's interesting. I thought I sold metal mu five four weeks ago. But because they weren't keeping a catalog of what numbers they'd use for the artwork, so you'd see certain numbers come up again. And then I would raise that, and then it would change. Or they would like be like two in the system with the same number. So then they would just change the other one. And I'm like, okay, maybe this John Paul person doesn't care, and they're just doing it for him. But I've never met an artist that like didn't care. One game for how the art is hung on the walls. Every artist would usually be quite meticulous about how they wanted the artwork to be presented. And this sculpture is John Paul what just didn't care if it was left right up down. He didn't give any instructions about the orientation? No, no, no, no. They would just flip it over. Take a look, figure out how they could hang it using whatever process they were doing. Originally, Abbey remembers the gallery using brackets and glue. But that's not holding. So they changed to holes and hooks, which works really well. The folded scrunched nature of the sculptures means there's these little caverns that are ideal to hide these attachments. And that's where the drill comes into it. There was no instruction from the artist of like where to drill into it for it to be hung just so. It was like, well, you can put a couple holes here. You won't see it from the front. Put a wire in, put it up on the wall. Yeah, looks alright. You know? [BELL RINGS] OK, so it seems like the staff are pretty confused by all of this. Does Kerry or Michael offer them any sort of explanation? Yes and no. When former workers ask for a phone number or an alternative email to discuss commissions or sales, they're told not to worry. Things like, "Shomple is a recluse" or "A recluse." Yeah. And he only likes to talk to Kerry. Or there's a language barrier that Kerry managed it or we'll check in with John Paul's assistant, an assistant. OK, so do any of the workers actually talk to the assistant? None of the workers I spoke to did, but several were familiar with him. He'd pop up in conversation whenever the gallery had to make a decision for John Paul. For example, once Molly, that's the Melbourne art manager. Once she'd uploaded John Paul's works into art gallery, she'd give Kerry's daughter Lauren a heads up. And then she would go upstairs into this little office space and get on her laptop and like look at an email from John Paul's Melbourne mouthpiece. When you say mouthpiece, what do you mean? Like, his assistant? Yeah. And she would then get his titles and his prices from this person who was emailing her. And so then she'd come back to you with the names of the art. [BLANK_AUDIO] but then go into the back end of Art Gallery and just update those details herself. - It sounds like for Molly, the way the gallery dealt with Jean-Paul stood out compared to other artists there. Did other staff tell you they felt the same way? - Yeah, they did. And they still feel like there's too many things that don't stack up about Jean-Paul. But if this guy's French working in Paris, the answer should be there. So I decide it's time to go to France. - Really? You go to France? Well, I don't go to France. - On my way to Paris, I'm in the train from Marseille heading to Paris to find out more about Jean-Paul Mangian. - Sheerine Yazbek, she's a producer for the ABC. She's based in Beirut, which is where she's from. But she grew up in Paris. She studied there. France is her home away from Lebanon. And she's also an artist. So she was the perfect person to be looking into this. And the first thing she said to me when we started talking was, we've got to go to La Maison des Artistes, which is the house of the artists. - That's the station of La Maison des Artistes. So I'm going to find out whether they have Jean-Paul Mangian registered on their list. This place is not Jean-Paul's Parisian studio. It's the national registry for artists located in a very posse part of Paris. And so sheerine makes the calculation that if Jean-Paul is a famous artist, it would make a lot of sense for him to be registered on La Maison des Artistes. And so she goes and visits in person. - Oh, she said you Mangian. - And I'm going to the artist? - Yeah. - And she finds no trace of an artist registered under the name Jean-Paul Mangian. - So La Maison des Artistes, what they told me is that some artists don't pay their taxes. So they wouldn't be registered at La Maison des Artistes. I doubt that someone who is supposedly exhibiting everywhere and who's famous can go under the radar in France. There's a chance that Jean-Paul just hasn't signed up. So sheerine casts a wider net. In Australia, we have a registered business number, which is an 11 digit number. It's called an ABN. And that's what you use to pay tax. In France, it's called a Syrée number. That's 14 digits and it's a legal requirement for any money making enterprise to have. And so Syrée decides to do a broad sweep of all the Syrée numbers. And she does find one match. It's called Iqta-Bis-Mul Jean-Paul Mangian. It's a family run manufacturing company that was set up in 1992 by a Jean-Paul Mangian. - It's spelled the same way. Same spelling. So Jean-Paul Mangian has retired, but his daughter, Syrée, Mangian, she stepped in. - Hello. I asked her if they have ever worked in the art sector. She said, "No." And never results in Australia. Never. - So for the moment, you didn't realize of radar. - No, not at all. But we never did. - And you never had any factory for Australia. - No, not at all. - Venturing gets a bit more direct and just says, "You know, we're looking for this artist called Jean-Paul Mangian, who's operating in Australia, makes these plastic sculptures. Is that your father?" - It's not at all. Mr Mangian's. of the. of the company, of the business of Bousonville. Not at all. - She said, "But this is not Mr Mangian from our company. Bousonville." And that she knows no one called Jean-Paul Mangian, except her father. - Thank you. - We'll see. - Okay, so, "A double smile, Jean-Paul Mangian, is not selling works to Studio Gallery Group in Australia." No, so it's another dead end. And when Shereen asks around the French art community, which is her community, no one's heard of him. No one knows his work, no one's ever seen his work, and they all keep commenting on the same French faux pas. You remember those titles I was talking to about, you know, papier la croix-on? - Yeah. - Well, some of them don't even pass elementary French. - The worst is la croix-on? La croix-on is not a French word. - Perhaps they meant "le croix-on." - Le croix-on means green, grass. But "gras-on" it's a weed killer brand. - "Weed killer." Yeah, and this weed killer brand is the only reference we can find to that word "gras-on." And "gras-on weed killer." It's not even French. It's an American brand. - Interesting. - So, okay, let me get this straight. Shereen can't seem to find any trace of Jean-Paul in France, in Paris. But what she has found is that it seems like whoever's naming his artworks, they don't have a particularly strong grasp of French. Is that right? - Yeah, that's right. - And so, she's looking there, you're looking here in Australia, you're both, you know, pushing really hard trying to find this guy. Do you think that all that digging around is what tipped off that mysterious media guy, Simon, who you met with at the start? - Yeah. - It is. And as I'm sitting there and he's waving around this document, which seemingly has affidavits, sworn statements, you name it, inside it. And he's telling me that all my questions about Jean-Paul have answers that I'm not privy to, that I should stop looking into. - Hmm. This was his warning to you at the start, saying, you know, back off. But Simon tells me something else. In fact, he shows me. It's the first page of a confidential report. And on it is written, Jean-Paul mungin in brackets, non-deplume. - So it's not the real name? - Not a real name. It's a pseudonym, an alias, a fake name, non-deplume. And that raises even more questions. But I'm not the only person looking for answers. There's someone else digging around to find out more about Jean-Paul Moulgeau. Her name's Anya Pécher. She's also an artist, and she has her own axe to grind. - Before my work even left the gallery, Jean-Paul Mangan's work started to appear. And it was very confusing, because as images were appearing on social media, attributed to him, people were questioning, you know, going, hey, look, you know, this works that looks similar, but it's not yours. What's going on? - That's next time on, in search of the missing artist. Both Studio Gallery Group directors, Kerry and Michael Armstrong, said no to an interview. Instead, they issued two separate statements via their lawyer. In the first one, they said, Studio Gallery Group categorically rejects the premise, tone, and methods of background briefings investigation, which reflects a sustained and harmful campaign against one of its artists. Jean-Paul Majan is the nom de plume of a real artist, a long established and protected artistic practice. Despite being put on notice of serious psychological harm to this artist, efforts to unmask this individual have continued, raising grave concerns about privacy, safety, and ethical responsibility. There is no legitimate public interest in exposing the identity of an artist whose work is lawfully created and sold, and whose anonymity is protected for legitimate reasons. Studio Gallery Group will respect its contractual obligations to its artists. What is now at issue is not art, but responsible journalistic practice. In a second statement, they also said, Studio Gallery is responsible for marketing of the artists they represent. Studio Gallery has audited its current marketing material relating to Jean-Paul Majan and have no concerns. Jean-Paul Majan continues to be an extremely popular artist, whose works are and will continue to be cherished by collectors. We respect the right of this artist and, in fact, all creators to use nom de plumes. Law and Elise didn't respond to our questions. Neither did Jean-Paul Majan, whom we tried to contact via Studio Gallery Group. [MUSIC PLAYING] Background briefing sound producers are Lila Shunah and Ingrid Wagner, sound engineering by Simon Brantweight, music composition by Hamish Kamaliri, fact checking by Justin Landis Hanley. Our rollout producer is Ben Spheen. The supervising producer is Max Charmers, and the executive producer is Fanou Falaali. The reporter on this story is Julia Bergen, and I'm Madison Canorton. To hear more about it, For sores, search for the background briefing podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you find your podcasts. Thanks for listening.