Sasha Yazov (b. 1999) grew up alongside the internet. In an age of seemingly endless economic growth and unlimited possibilities, anything and everything felt possible. Young people felt as if they were growing up in a world that greatly differed from that of their parents.

Computers were becoming commonplace. This was the era of The Sims, a then-popular single-player video game where players lead a life in a virtual world full of even more possibilities. The game was not goal oriented; players created virtual people, “Sims,” and put them in houses. They subsequently manipulated their Sims’ moods and could have them do whatever they wanted within the confines of the game.

Historically, when a new medium appeared, its practitioners set out to imitate what came before; photography imitated painting, and television imitated radio. Sasha Yazov goes against this trend by using an older medium in order to imitate a newer one.
Yazov begins his creations by finding artifacts from The Sims, including screenshots and other user-generated materials on the internet, analyzing key figures. He saves them, and after slight modifications, recreates someone else’s virtual trail in the real world on canvas. Using airbrush and stencil techniques, among others, Yazov brings this world of pixels and right angles into a world that isn’t quite so tidy. The landscape of the 2000s is being reimagined two decades later by someone whose formative years were deeply influenced by it.