Jack's Info Portal: Katy Perry Featured In New Will Cotton Exhibit

'Katy brings her own personality,' artist says of painting the pop star's portrait.
By Jocelyn Vena

"Cupcake Katy" by Will Cotton
Photo: Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles/ Mary Boone Gall

Artist Will Cotton will present his latest exhibit this weekend in Los Angeles. In it, models and pop superstar Katy Perry are portrayed as a sort of candy-coated royalty. And while designing costumes for his art this time around is new for the artist, including them in his candy world is definitely not.

"This exhibit differs from the past in that I'm making costumes for the models to wear," he told MTV News. "I've painted a lot of nudes before in this candy landscape world, and I just thought I wanted them to be wearing something. The way they're decorated can say something about the narrative. I've gotten more interested in depicting personalities. Katy is such a well-known figure and brings her own personality."

Cotton's focus in the exhibit is on royalty, and he designed crowns for many of his subjects, including Perry. "This time around it's through costume and character [that I'm trying to tell my story]. It was just this fun game I played with myself, asking myself what's beyond [the world of Candyland], like gingerbread-house trailer parks and pudding floods, a disaster scene, and trying to get as real as I could," he explained.

Cotton made headlines last year when he worked on the cover art for Perry's Teenage Dream album and served as artistic director on her "California Gurls" clip. Considering Perry's penchant for candy colors and Cotton's obsession with a candy world, the two seem to be a natural fit.

"She sent me an e-mail just saying as much, and she was wondering if a few paintings were available. I asked if she would come and pose for me, and that's not something I do," he said of the evolution of his relationship with the pop star. "There's something about her look that coincided with what I was doing. She wanted to ask me if it was OK to work with her. That was good for me, for sure. It made me feel that much better about doing stuff with her. She seemed to get what I was doing."

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