Babenko is a Belgian visual artist of Ukrainian descent. He grows up in an environment permeated with Soviet propaganda. Socialist realism reigns: stately art depicting Soviet reality in its most heroic form to portray the ultimate dream of communism as the governing regime. During his early school years, Babenko keeps a scrap book with the latest news from the newspapers Izvestij and Pravda. He spends his after-school hours in drawing school, where he is named the best painter, draftsman and lino-cutter. His artistic talent will continue to play a crucial role in his life: on the one hand to escape reality and find peace and quiet, on the other to decipher reality in all its complexity, in and through the creative process. Using gouache he makes wall newspapers in which he incorporates his experimental photos.