Five Beautiful Things

 

Gingerbread Dreams

I tend to like paintings that push the boundaries of reality and make the viewer dream a little. American painter Will Cotton is an artist who creates elaborate worlds out of sweet confections and is known worldwide thanks to the album cover he painted for Katy Perry’s hugely successful album Teenage Dream. His sugary wildernesses are filled with sugarplum mountains, lollipop forests, caramel rivers and gingerbread chalets. It may all sound rather sweet and twee, but the artist brings a kind of edge to the paintings that keeps them from slipping into the world of children’s art. Many of the landscapes seem slightly dark. Some of the gingerbread houses he paints appear ruined or abandoned to time behind a scrim of mysterious mist. Below is a selection of his work – a series of his fantastical gingerbread chalets. His paintings make me want to step inside and explore the confectionery worlds he depicts, and maybe take a nibble or two. Click here to see more of his work.