MISS MEATFACE
ARTIST TALK // ZINE SIGNING // EXHIBIT RECEPTION
Presented by Indira Cesarine
JULY 2, 2019 //
6pm – 9pm
RSVP: events@untitled-space.com
EXHIBIT ADDITIONALLY ON VIEW
JULY 8 – 13, 2019
THE UNTITLED SPACE
45 Lispenard Street Unit 1W
New York, NY 10013
Join The Untitled Space and gallery director Indira Cesarine for a special exhibit reception and event with Artist Kat Toronto aka Miss Meatface, who will be visiting from London, UK for an artist talk about her surreal imagery, zine signing, and solo exhibit reception on July 2, from 6-9pm. The exhibit, which features a selection of artwork created over the last several years featuring her persona “Miss Meatface,” includes photography, ceramics, zines, and videos, will additionally be on view from July 8-13, 2019 at the gallery.
Artist Kat Toronto’s photographic persona “Miss Meatface” began in mid-2014 as an artistically therapeutic outlet while she was going through a particularly brutal period in her life: a year before she’d undergone a full hysterectomy for cervical cancer and her first marriage was ending. The surgery left her confused and conflicted long after her body had physically healed and her mind continued to reel from the experience.
On the outside, she looked just like any other person but on the inside, she no longer possessed certain organs that society seemed to place an enormous amount of importance on. So she began using photography – self-portraiture in particular – and her photographic persona “Miss Meatface” as an artistic catalyst to delve into a complex set of questions regarding sexuality, gender roles, and where she now fits into society as a woman. Kat currently resides in London, England.
PRURIENT APPARITIONS’ ZINE
The “PRURIENT APPARITIONS’ ZINE” is limited edition print of 300 hand-signed and numbered copies. Each zine comes in a hand-sewn slipcover along with a collectible Miss Meatface postcard and photo pin and includes 24 pages printed in full color on silk 170 gsm paper.
“Celebrated 19th-century art critic John Ruskin described orchids as “prurient apparitions” and made it no secret his disdain for his fellow Victorians’ obsession with this “over-sexualized” flower. While shooting the photographs featured in the zine I came to realize that the images, much like Ruskin’s orchids, were dripping with an ethereal prurience deeply rooted in my own sexuality and the sensual, sexual world of flowers. Thus the title of the zine as well as the overarching concept, Prurient Apparitions, was born and brought to life through the fantastical world of my photographic alter-ego Miss Meatface.
Many of the photographs are double exposures created through the use of a Polaroid OneStep+ camera (I also occasionally used a vintage Polaroid Impulse camera as well) which I then scanned and digitally pasted into pages of found antique Victorian photo albums. When putting the images together I wanted each to play off of one another in a push and pull game of vulgarity and beauty, decadence and divinity, mystery and suggestion. Ultimately, I wanted to assemble them in a way that would titillate and intrigue, as well as dazzle the viewer just as a wild orchid might if stumbled upon unexpectedly in a meadow.”
