Painting the Multiverse : Shane Cotton Discusses the Creation of Pictorial Worlds

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'In Shane Cotton's studio, in an outer suburb of Palmerston North, there is a drum-kit. For some reason, I keep thinking about it. Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that one of Shane's 'target' paintings was on the wall behind it, so it reminded me of Julian Dashper. Or maybe it is somehow emblematic of the way Cotton works. He draws a whole lot of different things-ordinary and extraordinary things-into his pictorial worlds, and there they appear to exist together quite naturally. When we talked, it became clear that it is above all the process of transforming images-putting them into painted form-that inspires and fascinates Cotton. He frequently used variations of the word 'build', as he described this process in refreshingly matter-of-fact terms.'