Seller of pigeons 2016

Babak-Matveev’s Seller of Pigeons feels like a digital fairytale unfolding before us. I imagine the artist building up the layers, collaging photographs, digitally painting over surfaces, and intuitively shifting elements around the canvas until this surreal composition emerges. I love the flatness of the colours. The green jacket with its flowery details, the striking violet hat, the bright blue pants. And the bag bursting with the pigeons, each one a little gesture of hope. What might Babak-Matveev have been thinking as they brought all these disparate elements together? The work seems like a conversation with folk art and digital experimentation. The longer you look at the picture, the more the colours and textures start to vibrate. Like all artists, Babak-Matveev engages in a conversation with painters of the past and present, remixing their ideas with the digital tools available to them.