Kat Toronto, aka "Miss Meatface,” is a multidisciplinary artist hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area that works in performance based photography. She uses her often unsettling and surreal images to explore the cultural ideals of feminine beauty and the objectification of women in a feminist society by toying with the push and pull of dominance and submission and the act of revealing and concealing.

Several pieces of her work are currently on display at New York City’s The Untitled Space in “UNTITLED” - a group show of contemporary portraiture, up until February 28.

Interview by Isabel Hou

Miss Meatface: Who is she to you? What does she mean to you?

Miss Meatface is an alter-ego that lives within me and manifests herself in physical form through my photography and performance work. I look upon her as a grandmother, or perhaps a great aunt, someone that nurtures me and cares for me. She has pulled me through some intensely difficult times.

You are currently part of a group show at The Untitled Space in New York City. Untitled Space describes the show as having “a reoccurring theme of the anonymous silhouette, the mystery of the masked portrait, or a detailed, obscured view that keeps the subjects’ identity in question, emphasizing the beauty of the approach over the personality.” How does your work and your artistic vision fit in with this conceptualization?

When I began photographing myself as Miss Meatface it quickly became apparent that it was of high importance that my face be hidden as I wanted the identity of Kat erased so the main attention was not placed on the face of the artist but rather the scene or environment I had created. Through the use of masks I was able to take away my identity and become a blank canvas, or in some cases, turn myself into a doll. The mask allows me to transcend the black and white world of male/female and become an object.

You were born in the San Francisco Bay Area, went to school in Oakland, California and Kansas City, Missouri, and now reside in London, England. Do you find that your time in these different places has influenced your work?

I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to live in such varied places throughout my life and I can positively say that each one has woven inspiration here and there throughout my work. I am a lover of thrift shops and I feel that I am able to get to know a city and its people by going to their thrift stores and rummaging through all of the bits that people discard. Quite often these items find their way into Miss Meatface shoots as props or wardrobe and I think that they reflect the cities and locations in which I purchase them from. For instance, Miss Meatface shoots that I do in California are always different from those I do in England. Of course with Covid my thrift shopping days have been temporarily halted, but I have now moved my treasure hunting to online destinations like eBay, Etsy, etc.

The fetish aesthetic — latex, lingerie, bondage — is both recurrent and prominent in your work. Was this intentional in the beginning? Is it intentional now?

BDSM and Fetish culture has consistently played a large role in both my artwork and in my personal life. When Miss Meatface first began to evolve I felt drawn to the BDSM/fetish aesthetic because through the use of fetish masks and attire I was able to take away my own identity as Kat. I prefer to use a latex mask for Miss Meatface as I find that latex’s second-skin qualities are the most effective in helping to totally erase my features and turn me into a blank slate from which to build the Meatface persona upon.

In your work that depicts numerous subjects, there are often women in positions of dominance and men in positions of submission (“The Importance of Interior Design #2,” “Vanity,” and “From the Linen Closet” are a few that stood out to me). Can you go into detail about these themes of identity, sexuality and gender roles?

I love playing with stereotypical gender roles and the push and pull of dominance and submission in relationships. In my Meatface work I prefer to make social and/or political commentaries in a playful, lighthearted way whilst also hopefully sparking questions and conversations inside people that lead them to ask larger questions of themselves and society as a whole. At first when people see my work I think they are perhaps a bit bewildered or titillated with the bizarre subject at hand, but from there if they choose to delve deeper into what is going on in the images a whole new set of questions may develop and inspire them to inquire further within themselves.

You have created some short films and performances. What do you try to share with viewers in a video or performance work?

Through my video and performance work I love for viewers to be able to get a peek at my creative process: to watch me set up a scene, create the composition, and then take the photos. For the audience to be able to watch the "magic" in the making, so-to-speak. I think that it is incredibly important and special to be able to share these kind of moments with your audience, and I love doing it.

In some of your shoots, you use vintage Polaroid cameras and Impossible Project film. The dated effect plays very well with the subjects of your work. Where does this vintage inspiration stem from?

My use of Polaroid cameras harkens back to the days of the classic family snapshot and my unceasing love for this visual aesthetic. In all of my shoots I start out shooting with a digital camera and then move onto a vintage Polaroid camera. My favorite "go-to" vintage Polaroid cameras are the Polaroid Impulse and Polaroid Spectra. Impossible Film has since been bought out by Polaroid and so now I am back to using Polaroid film with original Polaroid cameras, haha!

What goes into the setup and execution of a shoot?

As mentioned previously, a lot of the inspiration for Meatface shoots comes from items I stumble across in thrift shops, whether they be items I use as props, wardrobe items, old curtains, etc. The amount of preparation and set up for shoots varies. Sometimes I will walk into a space and be able to jump into a shoot almost immediately with little to no set-up, other times I will just put up a backdrop and shoot, or sometimes an entire set will be built from scratch. If I’ve got a fairly over-the-top shoot planned I will usually enlist one or two people to help assist me and occasionally I will also have someone there filming to document the shoot.

The backdrops in your work are often everyday locations such as kitchens, backyards, and bedrooms. Your subjects’ clothes, poses, and attitudes are anything but. What do you hope to convey between this contrast? Or rather, do you view these elements as complementary?

For me there is something about the playful and oftentimes bizarre juxtaposition between kitsch and kink that I absolutely adore. To turn fetish around and make it into something that your grandmother or great aunt would do in her parlor at home whilst drinking tea, there is something so fabulously titillating and subversive about that!

As we live through a pandemic, have you thought about how the art world will changein the years to come? Do you foresee your work changing in response to this crisis?

The pandemic has definitely challenged artists to think about how they interact with their environment, as well as how they exhibit, promote, and sell their work. Like much of the retail sector in general I think that moving forward galleries will be doing much of their business online and turn towards the world of virtual reality as a way to showcase their artists and sell art. For myself in particular the lockdowns have challenged me to think of more ways that I can transform my living space to suit Miss Meatface shoots. I’ve not only had to adjust to this new way of living but Miss Meatface has had to as well. During the first lockdown in London I made a point of forcing myself to shoot at least once every other week, even if I wasn’t feeling up to it at the time, as a way to work through any of the anxiety, depression, and sadness that I had been feeling and I think that just doing that helped me immensely. I feel like as long as we can still make art there may be hope for us yet…

“UNTITLED” runs through February 28 at The Untitled Space in New York City.

Check out more of Kat’s work on her site and Instagram

Isabel Hou is a student and artist interested in writing, advocacy, and law. She is based out of Pennsylvania and is currently living in Colorado.

Feb 11 MISS MEATFACE

Feb 15 ROB THOM

Feb 8 DANA WALRATH

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