Will Cotton and Katy Perry at the exhibition opening, via People

Will Cotton‘s new paintings at Michael Kohn Gallery depict beautiful women caught inside dreamlike, manufactured fantasies.  In a show that tethers Cotton’s natural mastery of painting to the undeniable pull of popular culture and mass consumption, Cotton seems to be struggling to walk the line between the empowerment and overpowering his subject matter.  Contextualizing the female icon within a candy-coated dream world, Cotton is no newcomer to traditional subject matter, and his large-scale paintings straddle exaltation and exploitation.

More images and story after the jump…

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