Will Cotton

Will Cotton (Melrose, Massachusetts, 1965) is an American painter who lives and works in New York. He is best known for his landscapes made of pastries, candy and ice cream, sometimes populated by human figures. His paintings read as utopias that explore temptation and excess, and his work engages with consumer culture.

In the 1990s his paintings depicted pop icons taken from contemporary advertising, such as the Nestlé Quick bunny, in direct reference to the visual strategies meant to evoke desire. From 1996 the landscape itself became the object of desire. Cotton builds elaborate maquettes from real baked goods made in his Manhattan studio, which serve as the visual source for the final works. From about 2002 he began placing nude or nearly nude pin-up style figures in these candy-land scenes.

His iconography draws on popular culture, from gingerbread houses and cotton candy to pin-up art, and on the idea of a land of milk and honey. His influences include Frederic Edwin Church, François Boucher, Fragonard, Carleton Watkins and Gil Elvgren. He has exhibited in the United States and Europe, and his work is held in several public collections. His legacy lies in bringing figurative painting into the imagery of consumption and desire.