Kat Toronto, aka "Miss Meatface", is a multidisciplinary artist hailing from San Francisco who works in performance-based photography.
Kat says, “Miss Meatface began in mid-2014 as an artistically therapeutic outlet for me while I was going through a particularly traumatic period in my life: a year before I'd undergone a total hysterectomy for cervical cancer and my marriage was ending."
"The surgery left me confused and conflicted. Long after my body had physically healed my mind was still reeling from the experience. So I began using photography - self-portraiture in particular - as a way to explore concepts of sexuality and feminine beauty."
She produces wonderfully kitsch and bizarre images that toy with stereotypical gender roles and the push and pull of dominance and submission in relationships. Dressing in fetish-wear is a joyous process for Toronto, as it frees her from the restraints set on her physical body by a society obsessed with defining and policing gender, Kat says " 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 addition to photographic and ceramic work, Miss Meatface also produced a limited-edition zine. The zine, entitled Prurient Apparitions, is printed on silk 170 paper and is sold within a hand-sewn slipcover. “As a child of the 90s zines were a huge part of my high school experience,” Toronto explains. “They were an amazingly cheap and effective way of getting the word out about subjects and interests that were important to us and helped to share information in a pre-internet world.”
Go visit her webstore for some beautifully kitsch goodies, teatowels, heart shaped pillows, face masks and even a "perky pink pom pom poodle crochet toilet roll cover."
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