An extended Brat summer came to a close quite a while ago, which may explain why the latest issue of Vanity Fair features a painting of Charli XCX on its cover without even so much as a hint of the singer’s signature shade of green. Ask the painter of that work, and she’ll tell you that’s the point.
Issy Wood is the artist behind the cover for Vanity Fair’s new art-themed issue, the magazine’s first in nearly two decades. Wood, a rising star of the British art scene, has painted the singer in oil on velvet, depicting her amid gauzy stars and swooping white forms.
The American-born artist told Vanity Fair that the work was inspired by “the length and quality of her career prior to the global success of Brat, the throwaway candor of her lyrics, the Britishness we both share.”
The painting is titled Charli 2 (2025), though there does not appear to be Charli 1. That title may be a reference to Pop 2, Charli XCX’s acclaimed 2017 mixtape, which likewise has no similarly named predecessor.
Currently the subject of a show at the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, Wood is known for paintings of leather car seats, ritzy decor objects, chic jackets, and strangely cropped images of body parts, including blackened teeth and prying hands. A Vanity Fair article accompanying the cover stated these subjects could conceivably exist within the “orbit of the Brat universe.” (Whatever that means!)
Wood’s art has drawn praise from critics and collectors alike, with her works at one point selling for upward of $500,000 at auction. She rose as one of the top artists associated with a wave of figurative painting that emerged over the past decade.
Charli XCX is not quite an art world fixture herself yet, though she has made an effort to begun tapping this industry. Her Brat Tour memorably included a stop at the Storm King Art Center, and she is set to appear in The Gallerist, a forthcoming film about an art dealer who tries to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami Beach.
Just how admiring of an artwork is Charli 2? When Vanity Fair pointed out that the painting could be considered a form of fan art, Wood said, “I’m okay with that, because fan art is one of the purest and most tender art forms we have.”
