BELGIAN NIGHT Print

"Belgian Night" This colourfully painted and sprayed collage of images refers to Babenko paranoid fears from short and long term memory, like a tight web spun in the brain of a lonely caged bird or better an astronaut looking at earth. It brings to life events happened in Babenko's personal past and fears of things to come. Babenko often combines the depiction of personal emotional experiences with references to a longed for paradise, symbolised by colourful birds. Like a punk ouverture playing over and over again, this work is a scream for forgiveness, peace, quiet and freedom. Artistic approach Already in the 1980s, at the time of the communist regime, independent punk artist Andrej Babenko was looking for artistic freedom. He decided to leave Ukraine as a 14-year old punker to join an underground rock club in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 1999 Andrej fled from Ukraine to Belgium after having been arrested numerous times for being a punker. Considered to be at risk in his home country because of his socially critical views he was granted asylum in Belgium. Throughout his wanderings in Eastern and Western Europe the cultural input that Babenko experienced can be said to be very diverse at the least. 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, multilayered conspiracy thinking of Eastern Europe seems to be opposed to the linear and structured way of thinking in the West. By combining different things in a very impulsive and anarchistic manner Babenko achieves in his experiments the creation of all kinds of bizarre images 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. The bright colours of his works reveal the psychological struggle of a stranger in a capitalist society. Babenko is looking for the challenge. At times taking things too literally, he starts making classical stencil portraits of the great ones in a copy paste manner after the example of Lenin and Stalin. Babenko is continuously working on his imagery to express his own willful anarchistic vision. Using the technique of blind drawing he achieves the loss of physical control while gaining freedom of thought. Resulting creations are humanized by integrating emotions that originate from following the image. By enlarging the sketches and transferring them onto large canvas, monumental images arise that are not only filled with the artist’s energy, but that depict the world and society as perceived by the artist himself, that tell a story and present the world from another perspective. “What is regarded as high art in Eastern Europe, however, is often not even considered worth looking at in the West, and vice versa. This observation has led Andrej Babenko to question what purpose art exactly serves, if any”. Catalog Venice Biennale 2017 “The brilliant artist Andrej Babenko is known for his collaboration with Flanders Opera House, Banksy, Pussy Riot, Belgian and Post Soviet rock stars, the Venice Biennale 2017” Russian Top Society “About my portrait for Vyacheslav Butusov specifically I can say I no longer cut my arms listening to his songs but I did cut out the five-layer stencil and blew it out of the spray can to express my respect for the one who stood the test of time!” Performance Andrej Babenko & Vyacheslav Butusov Amsterdam 2017 “Your work is like a performance, a happening, a Munchian scream that reminds me of some bold poems of Charles Bukowski I like to declaim and between which Mauro’s dirty riffs fit excellently...”. Dr. Dirk De Wachter, in preparation of co-operation with Babenko and Pawlowski The well known artists that inspire you Comments The expressionist abundance of colours and images and surrealistic scenes in Babenko's paintings show resemblance with works from Chagall, Rauch, Dali, Bosch and Kahlo. Hidden in his works (and more prominently present in earlier works by Babenko) cut-out sprayed stencils can be discovered, linking to Banksy.

Print:Giclee on Canvas

Size:20 W x 16 H x 1.25 D in

Size with Frame:21.75 W x 17.75 H x 1.25 D in

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