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(* 1975 in New York) received his BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and a MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Cottam draws and paints. His ‘Dead Artist’ series features portraits of artists who have died since 1950. He draws their portraits in delicate silverpoint; always a small head, isolated and lost, barely the size of a coin, placed in the centre of a sheet of paper. In his drawing style Cottam exhibits a love of detail; he is meticulously exact in the drawing of the portrait so that the viewer tends to recognize the person depicted. With the series ‘Black Paintings’ one sees initially a black, glossy surface. Only gradually does the viewer realise that he is not looking at a monochrome black surface, but that a portrait shines through the numerous layers of glaze.