Inspiration or Imitation?

                                My subject explain my curiosity.

A friend of mine in the Art business sent me an email with this picture attached. He said: "  I think you were the inspiration of this artist.....I see too many similarities with the image of you from Shanghai Blues..."" Thats me in Shanghai Blues" I exclaimed. I am quite sure thats me in the first painting.I asked him who's the painter and what's her inspiration behind this piece.It's painted by an indonesian artist name of Astari. He knew of her work from this article about her in C Arts Magazine latest issue sep-oct08. Pg 106. In the article she says she is painting herself and that her reason behind is that "hand pointing: is that she is the woman who can get what she points at."It's in a series of 3. An indonesian version, an indian version and of course mindee's version (The chinese version). Title of the painting is call Contestant.Compare this picture and  Astari's painting.It is really hard for me to believe that she was painting herself. Well ya! When i was taking this picture I  imagined that I wanted to seduce this man i was pointing at. But I was pointing at blank space...... Am I really  Astari's Inspiration? Is she really painting herself?I am quite sure she probably googled or found this picture online or somewhere.....If you are interested.... here's the link to more of her work.http://www.vanessaartlink.com/exhibitions/?stat=1We were wondering how much is the painting worth?