Sasha Katz in conversation with Karmacowboy: Hyperreal Heroines

KC: Looking back, what has shaped you as an artist?

SK: If we look at the very early period, my grandmother used to collect magazine compilations about art, bind them, and show them to me. I lived in a house filled with my grandfather’s paintings, mainly portraits and landscapes; he was very good in both genres. There were also art galleries that I was taken to regularly.

In my later years, it was mainly movies and photography. I am a huge cinema enthusiast, and I am convinced that had circumstances not led me down the path of becoming an artist, I might have found myself crafting films instead.

Certain episodes from movies have had a profound impact on me, kindling the depths of my emotions: Giulietta Masina’s face at the end of the ‘Nights of Cabiria,’. The knife stab from the ‘Battle In Heaven’. Denis Lavant’s sprint to Bowie’s song in ‘Bad Blood’. The blowjob scene from ‘The Wayward Cloud’, and many such moments that transformed me on a sensual plane and gave me an unforgettable sensation, as if a 12-piece dinner set shatters within you due to an excess of beauty.

KC: So, what or who inspires you today?

SK: Currently, I’m obsessed with the sixth generation of Chinese cinema, watching everything I can find. I smoke weed after the sunset and watch films by Wáng Xiăoshuài and Zhāng Yuán. In these moments, I am the happiest and most complete human on Earth.

I’m also subscribed to a vast number of channels dedicated to photography from various eras and genres, constantly nourishing myself with their content.

I create at the intersection of the 3D genre, and I love to believe that I’m expressing myself in the language of photography using the tools of 3D.

KC: What does your creative process look like?

SK: I start my work by creating a new character or choosing a previously created character to work with. There are currently seven of them, seven women whom I’ve imagined out of nothing. They remind me of my friends, people I’ve seen somewhere, or even those who appeared in my dreams.

I have a vast list of ideas that I would like to bring to life. When it comes to the creative process, I have a sort of logical sequence that has developed over years of work, and I stick to it.

I select or create a new character, devise a storyline, and work for hours until there’s a sense of alignment between what I see on the screen and what I had envisioned in my mind before starting. Sometimes, I set out with one idea, but during the process, something else emerges that I end up liking much more. I treasure these moments that inject vitality into my process. When I’m nearing completion, I always end up with several options. Then I torture my close friend, whose vision I trust as my own, by asking her to pick a version.

I’m constantly thinking about the work, whether I’m actively engaged in it, out jogging in the park, or lying down to sleep. Once everything is ready, I let go of these thoughts and allow the work to live on its own, giving it over to the audience. It’s very important to me that when the viewer feels something personal, something I didn’t intentionally embed in the work, that’s when I know that I did a good job.