Bio

Artem Babinov is a Russian-born American artist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts working primarily in drawing and oil painting with a focus on figurative representation. He has shown work in Chicago and Boston during SoWa’s first Friday events and earned a BFA from Lesley University’s College of Art and Design. Artem’s work is influenced by figurative depictions of nudes throughout the history of Western art as well as twentieth century artists like Joan Semmel and Lucian Freud. In referencing photographs, his work depicts male bodies captured in intimate moments and settings, exploring themes of identity, sexuality, love and feminine expressions of masculinity. His work is autobiographical, aiming to present the viewer with an idealized vision of memories and events, and creates a sense of manufactured sentimentality.

Artist Statement

Sexuality and identity are two of the most central themes in my work. Through my practice, I capture the tenderness of fleeting intimate moments, the beauty of the male body, and by extension, queer aspects of my own identity. Often overtly homoerotic, my work romanticizes memories and fantasies of sensual encounters and presents the viewer with sentimental imagery of queer men captured in acts of intimacy. In many ways, this work is autobiographical as it discusses my own experiences and desires, allowing the viewer to glimpse into private moments of sex and love that heteronormative culture perceives as taboo.

Working representationally, I achieve dreamlike imagery that expresses the physicality of the male body in the context of intimate moments and settings. Through referencing photographs I manipulate, fictionalize and emphasize certain elements and details to suggest both exaggeration and impermanence of a moment; since much like the camera, our memories tend to be untruthful to reality. This process often results in hazy, dream-like images akin to blurry or overexposed film and evokes feelings of longing and nostalgia. Working monochromatically and employing blue as a signature in my pastel work I create a sense of sentimentality, while simultaneously hinting at homosexual associations with the color that have been prevalent in my upbringing; in Russian, calling a man “light blue” is equivalent to referring to him as gay, often in a derogatory way.

This body of work is a conduit for accepting and reconciling conflicting identities within oneself. As someone who comes from Russian background where expressions of homosexuality are often avoided, highly coded, and criminalized, it is an aspect of myself I have struggled coming to terms with in my early adulthood. I invite the viewer to peek into these intimate moments and consider that sex, love and desire are universal experiences regardless of the labels and stereotypes along which we used to divide ourselves.