Shozy — Interview | Rebobinart

Shozy is a Russian artist specializing in optical illusions applied to public space recognized for his 3D painting techniques. His work has been featured in cities such as Moscow, Sharjah, and Berlin, where he has developed mural interventions that play with perception, volume, and visual depth. Through muralism, Shozy transforms flat surfaces into visual scenarios that alter the reading of urban space, inviting viewers to interact with the artwork through movement and perspective.

You started doing graffiti in Moscow in the early 2000s, in a very different context from today. Looking back, what kind of relationship did you have with the city then, and how has it changed through your current practice?

When I started doing graffiti in the early 2000s, it was a completely different time. Moscow had just emerged from the 1990s, and the country felt as though it was beginning to live again. There was a sense of greater freedom, or at least that’s how it felt at the time. The city seemed like an open space for action.

Now everything has changed. There are cameras, more control, and many things are no longer possible. But graffiti has not disappeared; it has simply changed and now operates in different ways and forms. Back then I mainly painted graffiti, often illegally. Today I work legally and focus on broader interventions in urban space and large-scale murals.

Your current work is quite far removed from the immediacy of graffiti. At what point do you feel you stopped intervening in space and started constructing it?

The change was gradual. At some point I became interested not only in leaving an image on a wall, but in working with the surface itself and the space around it. I began connecting the image with the architecture and gradually blurring the boundary between the two. It probably started even before I began creating authorial murals, when interaction with space became more important than the drawing itself.

Your work no longer functions solely as an image, but as a perceptual experience. What interests you most today: representing something or altering the way it is perceived?

What interests me most is the boundary between image and perception. I understand my practice as a game with reality. Every image is already part of reality, even when it depicts something that could not exist in ordinary reality. When an image begins to function within a space, a recursive effect appears: reality contains the image, the image generates another reality, and the viewer constantly moves between the two.

When you work with optical illusion, the viewer completes the work through their gaze. To what extent do you feel you control that experience, and where do you lose control?

The viewer is a key element. As long as no one is looking at it, the work exists simply as an object. The moment it is perceived, it becomes activated. The viewer is the one who makes it work. I can control the composition, the viewpoint, and the principle of the illusion, but beyond that, each person’s perception comes into play. And that is something that can never be fully controlled.

Many of your pieces feature stretched surfaces, plastic-like elements, or simulated ruptures. What attracts you to this idea of “forced materiality” within urban space?

It all started with canvases. When I began painting polyethylene, I was not interested in the material itself but in the possibility of revealing the surface of the canvas. The transparent material seemed to represent nothing, yet at the same time it made visible the foundation on which everything happens. In a way, I was not working with an object, but with the support of the image itself. Polyethylene was a tool that allowed me to make visible what usually remains hidden.

Later, this approach moved into urban space. I began using walls in the same way I had previously used canvas. I am interested in the surface itself and in how the image interacts with it. Over time I moved from plastic to mesh. It is simpler and reveals space in a more direct way, without unnecessary effects, allowing the image to be simplified even further.

Your murals seem to physically alter the wall, even when they do not. Are you more interested in making the viewer question what they see, or in having them accept it without doubt?

What interests me most is the boundary between image and perception. I understand my practice as a game with reality. When an image begins to function in space, a recursive effect appears: reality contains the image, the image generates another reality, and the viewer moves constantly between the two.

Your work depends heavily on viewpoint and its relationship with the building. How does architecture shape your decisions, and when do you try to work against it?

For me, architecture is the foundation of the work. I continue the existing form of the building and then work from there: I distort it, extend it, and reconstruct it. It is important for me to start from the real space. That is what creates the effect in which image and architecture begin to be perceived as a single entity.

Are you more interested in integrating your work into a building or creating friction with it?

Sometimes the work is based on total integration with the building; other times it is based on tension with it. Both approaches are possible, depending on the project.

Your pieces often create an immediate visual impact. In a context where images are consumed very quickly, how do you avoid the work being reduced to that first “wow” moment?

Today there is an enormous amount of visual content, so the initial visual impact is always important. The work has to capture attention, even if only for a second. But for me, that is not the goal. What matters is what happens afterward, when the viewer begins to look more closely. I do not believe an image necessarily needs to contain a hidden meaning. Often, the way it works with space is already the content itself.

Do you think urban art is moving toward a more spectacular rather than reflective logic? Where do you place your work within that?

Spectacle and reflective perception are not contradictory. The first can attract attention; the second comes afterward.

Your work involves a high degree of planning and precision. How much room remains for error or the unexpected within your process?

I try to plan everything as much as possible in advance, but it is impossible to foresee everything. We work in different places, under different conditions: materials, surfaces, and weather. There is always a moment of adaptation on site.

Traditional graffiti involved physical and temporal risk. In your current practice, where does that sense of risk exist today?

In the past, risk was mainly related to the illegal nature of graffiti. Today the work is legal, but another type of risk remains: we often work at great heights, and that always involves physical danger. I enjoy that feeling of working above the city. Perhaps that is where that element of risk survives today.

You moved from illegal painting to working on international projects. How has your relationship with public space changed through that transition?

When I was only doing graffiti, I had a somewhat different view of many things. But there are basic principles that have not changed much. I never considered graffiti on an ordinary wall to be something that causes serious or irreversible damage; it is usually a surface that can be repainted and restored to its original condition.

Over time, I began paying more attention to people’s reactions. I saw that what I do often generates positive emotions, and that became part of the process. I also distinguish between two levels in my work: what I do for myself and how it is perceived by others. When those two things coincide, the result is most interesting.

As you moved into more institutional contexts, which aspects of your practice have been strengthened and which have faded?

In a project like Nou Sentit Urbà, where the context is defined and mediated, how do you find space to develop your own proposal?

In urban space, murals have long existed as a primarily decorative tool. But I am interested in the idea that a mural can exist not only as decoration, but as autonomous art. In that case, it ceases to be a decorative element and becomes an artistic statement within the city.

When artists are given freedom, stronger and more unexpected results often emerge. That is why I am interested in maintaining a balance: sometimes taking context into account, but without allowing it to become the sole foundation of the work.

When working in a specific environment such as Nou Barris, what weighs more heavily in your decisions: the technical challenge or the reading of the place?

I do not always work directly with the local context. There are projects where it is important and I immerse myself in it, but in general I tend to maintain a freer position and work from my own artistic logic. When artists are given freedom, stronger and more unexpected results often emerge. That is why I am interested in maintaining a balance: sometimes taking context into account, but without allowing it to become the sole foundation of the work.

If you remove optical illusion from your work, what remains and what disappears?

It is difficult for me to separate it completely because my style is deeply based on optical illusion and spatial intervention. But even without illusion as a device, the interest in space and in how images can reinterpret it remains. I have flat works—on paper or canvas—where there is no direct illusion, yet the same reflections on space and perception are present.

In other words, the specific effect would disappear, but not the approach. I remain interested in how an image can work with the sensation of space.

As your work becomes more precise and controlled, what are you still trying to explore that generates uncertainty for you?

There is no specific answer to this question in the provided material. The closest reflection is:

“I can control the composition, the viewpoint, and the principle of the illusion, but beyond that, each person’s perception comes into play. And that is something that can never be fully controlled.”