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ABSTRACT
“Gingerbread, Architecture” examines the work of contemporary artist Will Cotton, outlining a case for sensual architectural representation wed to the edible and vicarious tasting of the built environment. Following tantalizing descriptions of eating architecture from Ruskin and Proust, the review finds contemporary examples of such in the work of Janine Antoni and the jellymonger team of Bompas and Parr. Narrative traditions including Hansel and Gretel offer some context for Cotton's painting of gingerbread structures in ruin alongside art historical ties to Thomas Cole's “Course of Empire” series and the snowscape as a specific subject genre. The author closely examines Cotton's projects, their atmosphere, and scale in an effort to discount their dismissal as metaphors for decadent culture and, instead, reveals their appropriation of landscape painting traditions, including the misty worlds of J.M.W. Turner, and the artist's allegiance—across several paintings—to the mapped territory featured in the Candyland board game.