MARFA MONROPCO 2016

Babak-Matveev made MARFA MONROPCO in 2014, using what looks like digital manipulation to create an image that's just bursting with colour. It's like a candy-coated dream, right? What gets me is the contrast between the hyper-real garden and the figure. Look at the waterfall backdrop, then the woman in the centre. The folds of her dress are so precise it's almost unsettling. And those boots! They ground the whole composition, adding a touch of punk defiance to all this romantic fantasy. It reminds me a bit of David Hockney, but with a digital twist. Like he's taken his vibrant palette and thrown it into the twenty-first century. It is a reminder that art is all about taking what we know, mixing it up, and making something new and unexpected.