WHO IS COTTON.TV THE ARTIST BEHIND THE DREAMIEST SCAPES ON IG
The digital artist who turned Instagram into a personal diary of colour, light, and Roman dolce vita. Known internationally for minimal, dreamlike compositions that feel like postcards from a summer you never want to leave.
"My main inspiration is based on how to recreate an emotion the most honest way possible."
Who is cotton.tv?
Charles Crouzat was born and raised in Paris and now lives a sweet dolce vita in Rome. He grew up surrounded by creativity: a father and sister who photographed as a hobby, a mother who wrote. His first memory of art practice is comics, which he tried to reproduce, and characters drawn on high school notebooks. After studies in hotel management, he quickly realised he needed more creative work to light up his days. A design course in Italy led to two years of freelance graphic design, and in 2016, he began posting digital artworks on Instagram as cotton.tv. The rest is a pastel-coloured dream.
Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences?
My first influences are part of some main movements in the history of art. I'm a huge impressionist fan, with artists like Monet and Renoir and the colours they combined. I also really enjoy the poetic and romantic aspect of some baroque masterpieces like Bernini sculptures. Finally, I find the work of Edward Hopper and David Hockney really inspiring because of the quiet atmosphere they give.
Colour as emotion. The way light dissolves into water and air.
The stillness. The sense that something important is happening very slowly.
Words that hit the soul and become images that demand to be made.
I find myself really inspired by moments of life that I see in the cities I have lived in, holidays, time with friends. An evening night out, sunsets, a special memory I want to illustrate with colourful artworks, peaceful compositions. I'm really sensible to that summer Mediterranean vibe that I enjoy every day in my hometown Rome, full of poetry and art in every street corner. My inspiration also comes from texts I read. French and Italian poetry with writers like Arthur Rimbaud or Eugenio Montale. It's always nice to feel words hitting your soul and allowing you to create artworks that link with a special sensation you lived at an exact moment. This also works with song lyrics. It directly makes me want to create the image I have in mind reading or listening to it.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
My main objective in the creative process is to recreate the closest way possible the feeling I have and the image linked with it in my mind. My goal is to create a kind of personal diary with colourful compositions. I start by defining the main direction to take: landscape, street scene, fantasy scene, collage. Once I know where to go, I work on the composition and where the main elements will be placed. I usually take elements from images I took myself or from picture banks. Once I have found the composition that matched the feeling I got, I work on the colours, usually pastel and sunset gradients that I like the most. I finally edit the composition to arrive at the peaceful atmosphere that is the objective.
"I don't force myself to create. I do my art when I'm inspired. It can be once a week or once a day, depending on my personal life and the moments I enjoy."
How has the pandemic affected your creativity?
The impact of the pandemic, even if it changed my daily life, didn't have a huge repercussion on my creativity. I found myself happy to be at home with time to work and create, trying to find positivity in that particular moment. I actually got more involved in my freelance work and activity, trying harder to find projects and new ideas. I think the world is changing constantly, especially in a time where technologies improve every day. We have to live in our time and enjoy the experiences it affords, but I also think it is good, time to time, to take distance from all of this, try to understand ourselves better, and keep maintaining a constancy in the simplicity of life. This is an idea I try to share with my work: it's also good to escape a bit of reality sometimes.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
So many names come to mind: actors, musicians, artists, politicians. In my opinion an icon should simply be someone who has the strength to give their life to a passion or a conviction, to share the messages that they believe in, and to show respect doing it, with an open mind and kindness.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Wellbeing for me would be a sensation that allows you to find positivity even during the bad times. I noticed with time that happiness can be reached by enjoying simple moments of life, enjoying the present, what is happening right now. When you find a way to be happy with less needs, it totally changes your vision of life and helps you feel special daily moments. Also, a wellbeing aspect would be to surround yourself with people that you love, persons that help you be the best version of you. It's important to share emotions, to create nice connections, and create memories.
"When you find a way to be happy with less needs, it totally changes your vision of life and helps you feel special daily moments."
Why cotton.tv belongs in this archive
There is an entire category of artist that the mainstream art world is still figuring out how to hold: the digital native who builds something genuinely beautiful from a laptop, a design sensibility, and an Instagram grid. Charles Crouzat did not wait for a gallery. He built his own world, one pastel composition at a time, and invited people in.
What makes cotton.tv worth paying attention to is not just the aesthetic, though the aesthetic is genuinely lovely. It is the philosophy underneath it: that art should recreate emotions honestly, that creativity cannot be forced, that a personal diary made of colour is a legitimate artistic practice. Monet thought so too. Edward Hopper thought so. The lineage is longer than the algorithm would have you believe.
Follow him at @cotton.tv on Instagram. And the next time you see a pastel sunset over a Roman rooftop rendered in candy colours, you will know who made it.
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