Max Sauco is a Russian photographer with a distinctive series of works. Having started as a painter, Sauco incorporates the surreal and the metaphysical in his photographs, which are often mistaken for paintings. Using digital manipulation, Sauco creates dreamy and nightmerish worlds, playing with the conscious and subconscious, prejudices and common beliefs.
The shock effect plays an important role in his work, but as he explains in an interview, he doesn’t see it this way, “Shocking plots? Indeed? If I wanted to shock, I would surely achieve the effect. Simply I never demonstrate works actually off-limits, I even destroy some of them so that I am never tempted to show them to someone – for instance, I have destroyed some of my works of the Fingers series. Thus, there exists a boundary and I maintain it. I accept some of the ethical rules imposed by the society and I temporize. I am constantly aware of which works deserve being exhibited.”
