Ábel Szabó’s art focuses on the urban landscape, especially the industrial and suburban environment. In his paintings he depicts unmanned, yet strongly anthropomorphised places, where industrial facilities, buildings, structures, the industrial environment and urban infrastructure appear in the absence of living nature, almost in mechanical solitude.
These deserted, post-apocalyptic landscapes, where traces of civilisation are still visible but human presence is absent, raise questions not only about the environment but also about the future of society. The artist’s works reflect on themes of history, social and natural change and urbanisation, making the viewer reflect on the relationship between modern civilisation, development and humanity.
In the 2010s, Abel Szabó was mainly attracted by the stark aesthetics of abandoned factories and industrial estates, but by the 2020s his painting had become more relaxed, with colour, splashes of colour and painterly gestures playing an increasingly important role. In addition to painting, he has also returned to printmaking, with a selection of his latest monotypes on show at the Hegyvidék Gallery.
Through the dystopian world of his paintings, he conveys his own observations and reflections, which are characterised primarily by a precise, photo-realistic depiction of the objectivity of everyday reality, but also by artistic abstraction and sensitive observation.