THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
23 June 2008
Will Cotton
(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Art on the Edge: 17 Contemporary American Artists.)
"When I began working with confectionary landscapes as subject matter, I wanted to approach the idea like an explorer in a new and strange place. I always start a painting by first building a maquette in the studio. This allows me to look at the scenery and be surprised by what I see. Building candyland is a way of being in it, of making it real for me. The maquettes don't survive, they melt and deteriorate and rot, so the painting becomes a record of a place which was real but has ceased to exist. Like the mythological 'land of Cockaigne,' candyland is an imagined utopia whose exact geographical location is elusive. It's the idea of a land of plenty where all is pleasure and there's no such thing as work. It's about imagining the possibility of constant indulgence."
[Will Cotton (b. 1965, Melrose, Massachusetts) attended Cooper Union, New York City (BFA 1987), spending a semester at the École Regionale des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France. He studied for a year at the New York Academy of Art (1988). His paintings have been included in numerous group shows throughout the United States and Europe, and have been the subject of solo shows at Mary Boone Gallery, New York City (2004, 2000-2002); Jablonka Galerie, Köln, Germany (2001); I-20 Gallery, New York City (1999); and Silverstein Gallery, New York City (1998, 1996, 1995). Cotton lives and works in New York City.]
