...an Artist's wife's hallucination Print

As a refugee that emigrated from Ukraine to Belgium at the age of 25 after having been arrested numerous times for being a punker, the cultural input that Babenko Belgium has experienced can be said to be very diverse at the least. Already in the eighties he was looking for artistic freedom in times of a communist regime by fleeing from Ukraine as a 14-year old punker to an underground rock club in Saint Petersburg, Russia. What is regarded as high art in Eastern Europe, however, is often not even considered worth looking at in the West and vice versa. Also, the chaotic, multi-layered conspiracy thinking of Eastern Europe seems to be opposed to the linear and structured way of thinking in the West. This observation has led Babenko Belgium to question what purpose art exactly serves, if any. What should an artwork have as an effect? What is the task of the artist? By combining different things in a very impulsive and anarchistic manner Babenko Belgium achieves in his experiments the creation of all kinds of bizarre performances and spatial collages. His chaotic collages resemble virtuoso soviet rockets that come about in an intuitive way, while his chaotic performances are inspired by communist propaganda. His works typically feature a very strong plasticity, with an expressivity and colour palette that bear witness of the different cultural influences he has undergone during his life. Art works are not limited to one specific type. Paintings – mostly made with mixed media and having a strong craft’s component, such as the use of hand-cut stencils – have been displayed by several art galleries. The paintings are often part of a larger body of related activities, among which live action painting and performances. The artist is of the opinion that artistic expression should not be confined to one specific sphere (the ‘experimental’, the ‘intellectual’, the ‘commercial’, the ‘alternative’, …) and does therefore not shy away from moving in all these spheres at the same time, witness to which are for example his collaboration with a university professor on the (political) topic of the war conflict in Ukraine on the one hand, and his on-demand commercial creations, such as silk screened images on textile. Over the past years, Babenko Belgium has studied human suffering and struggles in its various forms, expressions and at various levels (individual vs. societal), drawing from his personal experience from living in completely different countries and cultures, but also from following and analysing current relevant affairs.

Print:Giclee on Fine Art Paper

Size:10 W x 10 H x 0.1 D in

Size with Frame:15.25 W x 15.25 H x 1.2 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.