Will Cotton

Will Cotton is a contemporary artist currently working in New York City. He has earned his BFA Cooper Union and his MFA at New York Academy Art. He directed the Katy Perry “California Girls” music video. While he works with a variety of different mediums such as drawing, sculpture, and painting, Cotton’s work all center around candy in a very surreal way. For example, in some of his realistic oil paintings, he replaces the hair with candy ribbon. Also, he paints a lot of surreal Rubeniste paintings where the clouds are cotton candy.

I find his cake sculptures really intriguing and interesting too look at. I love how realistic they are. Yet, at the same time they seem absurd. I think that his color placement very well balanced, and the pastel colors give optimistic and light hearted feel. I think that his attention to detail in the icing really draws the viewer in and holds his attention. The cakes remind me of weddings. Perhaps, the massive amount of cakes collapsing on each other could be representing the absurd consumption of weddings. Another interesting part of the sculpture is that he is able to use very recognizable shapes in our culture to create a very organic shape.