Biography
Artist, graduate of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Moscow), postgraduate researcher at MIPT, publisher of Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, and founder of the K12 space (opening in autumn 2026).
Polina Babaeva’s artistic practice embodies images of mass culture placed within a conditional environment flooded with symbols and layered meanings. Although mass culture occupies a central place in her work, the ideas of Pop Art are presented not directly, but through narratives filled with both internal and external symbolism. While the main idea of Pop Art was to elevate images of everyday life and popular culture to the level of elite art, Polina populates her paintings with figures from imaginary worlds inserted into ordinary reality.
Dreams of Japan
Polina Babaeva’s Dreams of Japan unfolds as an imaginary interior in which vivid acrylic Pop Art meets a collector’s attention to detail: a vase with Imari decoration, a fragment of wallpaper bearing Hokusai’s wrestlers, silk robes. This lavish world resembles a carefully assembled set of unattainable desires — a visual moodboard in which Japan exists as a construction kit for an unreachable dream rather than as a geography.
The Young Pope and Batman
The painting series The Young Pope and Batman explore the figure of the chosen one — the individual who personifies the highest form of exclusivity. In trivial situations or imagined circumstances, the Pope proves barely distinguishable from anyone else stripped of his privilege and singularity. Like a puzzle box, these paintings hold an inner narrative beneath the visible one.
Art Moscow Fair
2026 / Gostiny Dvor, Moscow
Art Russia Fair
2026 / Gostiny Dvor, Moscow
