BEET GATHERER 2016

Curator: Welcome. Today, we're looking at "Beet Gatherer," a painting from 2016 by Babak-Matveev. It’s a striking piece that brings together portraiture, landscape, and elements of folk art, seemingly all at once. Editor: Wow, it’s…intense! Like a vibrant fever dream. My immediate feeling is one of overwhelming abundance—maybe even a bit claustrophobic with all those colors. But the woman’s gaze is really grounding. Curator: I find it interesting to situate this work within discussions of labor, particularly focusing on the labor of women in agriculture. Consider how it might be speaking to traditional gender roles within rural communities. Editor: Yeah, and the beets are almost monstrous! Like, 'Little Shop of Horrors' monstrous, which contrasts sharply with the prettiness of the floral patterns in her shawl and the backdrop. Is this meant to be a statement about the hidden toil behind idyllic imagery? Curator: Exactly! And let’s not ignore the visual cues suggesting “naive art”, combined with a hyper-real quality. This potentially complicates simple readings about rural innocence or hardship. What if this work is playing with romanticized notions of peasant life while also subverting them? Editor: The clash is palpable! I almost feel like the painting is mocking the idea of the pastoral, while simultaneously being seduced by its beauty. Curator: Precisely. Also, how does the artist, in your opinion, leverage our expectation when considering “landscape art”? Editor: It makes me think about manipulated environments, even the kind we consider idyllic like that manicured garden backdrop with the pergola. I read somewhere the artist often juxtaposes manufactured and natural environments. The whole scene feels staged. Even her calm is staged somehow. Curator: The work operates as a site of negotiation, between visual languages of past and present but it prompts viewers to actively question representation, identity, and social narrative. Editor: It is a lot to chew on for sure! It has prompted me to question my preconceived ideas of romanticizing labor when in reality the truth may lie closer to that monstrous beet than the red rose. Curator: Indeed. There’s a challenge to complacency here and a invitation to continue interrogating the picture. Editor: Absolutely, and after considering the layers, the intense fever dream that struck me is looking more and more like a complex meditation.