Introduction
Ábel Szabó has created one of the most consistent oeuvres among the generation of artists that emerged in the late 1990s. From his early graphic works to the painting cycles of recent years, his artistic practice has been characterized by a strongly conceptual approach. His meticulously detailed paintings often incorporate elements of social criticism and humor. His works bear a distinctive stylistic signature that is uniquely his own.
He was born in Kolozsváron (Cluj-Napoca) in 1974. He first attended the Pedagogical High School of Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș). In 1989, he moved with his family to Sopron, Hungary, where he continued his artistic studies at the Secondary School of Fine and Applied Arts in Budapest. He graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts with a degree in graphic arts, where his teachers were Alajos Eszik and Gábor Pásztor.
Since 1998, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In recognition of his artistic achievements, he received the Tornyai Plaque, the Grand Prize of the Autumn Exhibition of Vásárhely, in 2014, followed by the Mihály Munkácsy Prize in 2016. He was awarded the Derkovits Scholarship and a three-year scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Since 2025, he has been a corresponding member of the Fine Arts Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. His works can be found in numerous Hungarian and international collections. Since 2018, he has been teaching at the Department of Drawing and Art History of the Juhász Gyula Faculty of Education in Szeged.
Early Works – Prints and Graphic Art
Ábel Szabó’s earliest graphic works, created in 1995, consisted of both color and monochrome lithographs connected to the organic tendencies of abstract art. From 1997 onward, he immersed himself in the technique of screen printing, which also became the medium of his diploma works. In these prints, abstraction shifted toward a geometric visual language, placing increasing emphasis not only on individual abstract forms but also on the construction of pictorial space. The elements, depth, and structure of space were developed through a technique based on colored lines employing optical color mixing. What makes these works particularly interesting is that although they are flat prints on paper, they create a surface reminiscent of the texture of a painted canvas. In both their spatial conception and their treatment of materiality, they point toward the painterly path the artist would later pursue. His diploma project consisted of ten screen prints printed onto graphite-coated surfaces.
In the year following graduation, while completing a sixth-year postgraduate program, he produced experimental works that moved beyond the conventional tools of graphic art. He etched various forms into large transparent plexiglass panels and illuminated them from above with neon light. These works addressed themes such as the repetition of forms (Madár (Bird)), the grid structure of urban plans (Rejtett utak I. II. III. (Hidden Routes I–III), Urbanizációs jelenség (Urbanization Phenomenon), Tájkép (Landscape)), and the symbolic graphic structure of labyrinths (Labirintus III. (Labyrinth III)).
Created at the turn of the millennium, Alagút 1 (Tunnel I) and Alagút 2. (Tunnel II) already foreshadow the figurative mode of representation through which the artist would later depict a scene in his oil paintings on canvas.
In conceptual projects conceived in the early 2000s, Szabó sought to draw attention to socially sensitive issues, such as the situation of homeless people in Budapest. The central motif of these works was always a pictogram sticker that the artist placed at a specific location as part of an intervention. Documentary photographs of these actions were subsequently transformed into digital prints. These prints became the final stage and lasting imprint of the concept.
The pictograms sought to regulate situations verbalized by the artist through the titles of the final works: „Aludni tilos!” (“Sleeping Prohibited!”), „Figyelem! Alszanak!” (“Attention! People Sleeping!”) and „Kukázni tilos!” (“Dumpster Diving Prohibited!”). Although these regulations appeared to address homeless individuals directly, the true target audience was the city administration and the intellectual public visiting the exhibitions.
He returned to this subject in 2020 with a conceptual project based on printmaking. The linocuts depicted various contemporary political and socially critical scenes. Due to their black-and-white appearance, the prints already resembled newspaper illustrations. The artist envisioned them as giant billboards returning to public space. While the linocuts were completed, the final enlarged posters intended for outdoor installation remained unrealized plans.
Still Lifes
The oil paintings on canvas produced in the early 2000s marked a significant turning point in Ábel Szabó’s artistic practice. At first glance, these almost hyperrealist paintings appear to be still lifes; in reality, however, the artist developed a highly original genre of his own, perhaps best described as a “genre scene without people.” By bringing together unrelated objects or removing an object from its usual context, he imbues the depicted items with meanings that extend beyond themselves through a combination of narrative concision and subtle visual humor.
In Jó reggelt, jó munkát! (Good Morning, Have a Good Day’s Work!, 2003, oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm), five shot glasses and a bottle of pálinka stand on a table covered with a blue-and-white checkered oilcloth tablecloth. The tablecloth and the title’s exhortation to drink pálinka first thing in the morning inevitably evoke the gentle irony of everyday life in Central and Eastern Europe.
Created in the same year Mária meggybefőttel (Mary with Cherry Preserves, 2003, oil on canvas, 80 × 40 cm) depicts a porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary standing on a green table covered with a crocheted lace tablecloth, accompanied by a jar of preserved cherries. Both the lace cloth and the devotional figurine were inseparable elements of Hungarian domestic interiors during the 1980s. The shaft of light that highlights the figure of Mary is already particularly significant in this still life, especially in light of the artist’s later depictions of abandoned urban landscapes and industrial ruins, where light reflected in puddles or appearing on pavements functions as a symbol of hope within these radically emptied urban environments.
In AK47 (2004, oil on canvas, 90 × 100 cm), the iconic Soviet assault rifle rests upon a floral-patterned oilcloth tablecloth. As the most widely produced firearm in the world, the weapon has an especially unsettling presence. It may evoke memories of the Balkan wars of the 1990s or the burdensome legacy preserved throughout post-Soviet societies. This atmosphere is intensified by the gray wall and the naked light bulb hanging from the upper edge of the composition.
In contrast, Naptár (Calendar, 2006, oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm) presents a typical domestic interior of the period, where the specific location itself is of little importance. The titular object is merely a fragment of a calendar depicting mountains. The simultaneously familiar and enigmatic relationship between the various spatial elements, particularly the reflected light shimmering on a glossy door surface, reinterprets the tradition of trompe-l'œil painting.
Landscapes
During the first years of the 2000s, parallel to the still lifes, Szabó also began painting landscapes. In Körbálák (Round Hay Bales, 2004, oil on canvas, 40 × 65 cm), the arrangement of the landscape’s colored bands and the proportions between ploughed field, meadow, and sky strongly recall the spatial sensibility of his screen prints from the late 1990s. This approach is likewise evident in Útépítés az Alföldön (Road Construction on the Great Hungarian Plain, 2006, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm), where a road under construction—an unmistakable sign of human intervention—cuts through natural formations, and in Bozót (Thicket, 2006, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm), where a chicory plant grows from the gravel shoulder beside a roadway, emphasized in a manner reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer’s Large Piece of Turf (1503).
The first cityscape among these landscapes is Liget tér (Liget Square, 2006, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm), depicting a district of Kőbánya devoid of both pedestrians and vehicles. One of the most striking examples of the artist’s uninhabited urban scenes is Szófia utca (Sofia Street, 2009, oil on canvas, 110 × 150 cm), where not a single person walks between the apartment buildings of downtown Pest. One of the recurring questions concerning Ábel Szabó’s work is why human figures are absent from these paintings. According to the artist, this is intended to prevent another figure from influencing the viewer’s perception and to allow the viewer to experience the image without having to share the scene with someone else. Another important reason is that figures might distract attention from the central motif – the depicted building, object, or urban fragment – as, for example, in Piac (Market, 2018, oil on canvas, 110 × 150 cm). Consequently, these cityscapes are not representations of urban life, nor are they examples of the traditional veduta. Most often they depict office buildings, factories, abandoned industrial ruins, and market halls. Around them, nature flourishes: the sky is reflected in puddles on the pavement, dramatic cloud formations traverse the horizon, and the setting sun casts extraordinary light across the scene. Nature reclaims the ruins, gradually covering the remnants of civilization. New life emerges from crumbling stones, leaving the impression that nature has no need of humanity.
Within these paintings, architectural elements, residential buildings, streets, and squares collectively form the structural fabric of the city. Shapes, volumes, and colors combine into an organized system. Industrial ruins stand as mementos at various points throughout the urban landscape, as in Rom (Ruin, 2014, oil on canvas, 150 × 110 cm). Their significance transforms them into monuments of transience, much like the former Puskás Ferenc stadion (Puskás Ferenc Stadium, 2011, oil on canvas, 95 × 130 cm). The theme of impermanence becomes especially pronounced in az Emlékezetből kiesett táj (Landscape Fallen Out of Memory, 2016, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm). According to the artist, he chose these subjects because many of these structures were once among the most advanced examples of industrial architecture. Today, however, the disappearance of industry from these sites has led to their silent and seemingly meaningless decay. What remains are derelict factory buildings, abandoned railway tracks, and partially collapsed halls – structures that have slipped from collective memory and become victims of oblivion.
A separate group could be formed from those paintings in which we see storage sites of components belonging to functioning industrial plants, such as the building of Budapest Ganz Holding Ltd. (2005, oil on canvas, 40 × 70 cm), which emerges behind a highway and railway tracks in a highly detailed, hyperrealist manner. Another example is a Csepel Művek (Csepel Works, 2006, oil on canvas, 100 × 120 cm), where the foreground shows accumulated raw materials necessary for industrial production. Behind the storage areas, a factory chimney appears, while especially striking are the tufts of grass growing from the edge of the pavement, emphasizing the opposition between industrial infrastructure and nature. The Telephely (Depot) series follows the same visual logic as the Csepel painting: massive metal components, wire ropes, and lattice structures dominate the composition. At the same time, nature has almost completely disappeared, and only fragments of the sky remain visible (Depot I–IV, 2012, oil on canvas). ES&I (2015, oil on canvas, 190 × 130 cm) and Épület csövekkel (Building with Pipes, 2016, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm) continue this line of industrial representation, while also reinforcing the themes of transience and abandonment.
In those paintings where the viewer looks out onto a grey city through a blurred, dirty, scratched, or graffiti-marked window, it becomes clear how limited human perception actually is. Reggel a buszból (Morning from the Bus, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 × 50 cm) and Megálló (Stop, 2017, oil on canvas, 50 × 60 cm) amplify associations connected to travel, as we pass a suburban railway stop which otherwise we would probably not even notice, our attention is now also drawn to the window itself, covered with graffiti tags and scratched by acts of vandalism. In Morning from the Bus, the composition is divided into two perceptual zones: a white car on one side and scribbles drawn on the window on the other. This duality relates both to visual perception and its reception, but also carries a social dimension: vandalism of public property renders the window functionally useless, eliminating the possibility of seeing clearly what lies beyond the vehicle. A similar idea appears in Holtág (Backwater, 2017, oil on canvas, 50 × 70 cm) and Intézmény (Institution, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 × 50 cm), where in one case a landscape is hidden behind a dirty, scratched window, and in the other, a building with a parked car in front of it. Elmélyülés a tájban (Immersion in the Landscape, 2020, oil on canvas, 50 × 60 cm) takes this idea a step further: here, the graffiti tag that interferes with the view is transformed into an aesthetically refined calligraphic form, behind which an otherwise ordinary landscape unfolds. The title suggests that if attention can be fully focused on the landscape itself, the obstructing markings disappear from perception.
As mentioned above, Szabó graduated in printmaking from the University of Fine Arts, and although he builds a consistent painterly oeuvre, graphic techniques repeatedly reappear in his artistic practice. According to the artist, graphic works help him further develop themes that later reappear in painting, functioning as a kind of methodological extension of his creative process. In these monotypes created in 2021 and 2023, familiar painterly motifs – urban views and street fragments – recur, but due to changes in scale and technique, they gain new contextual meanings.
Távoli tűz (Distant Fire, 2022, oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm), painted after the COVID pandemic, conveys a markedly different atmosphere. It evokes our collective experience of a deserted city during lockdown, when streets and squares were empty and inaccessible. In the distance, at the end of an overpass, a barely visible fire burns, intensifying the already unsettling sense of catastrophe.
During his 2022 solo exhibition in Miskolc, the artist had the opportunity to visit the abandoned halls and silos of the former Diósgyőr Iron and Steel Works. This experience is commemorated in Entrópia (Entropy, 2023, oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm), depicting a vast abandoned industrial hall where sunlight enters through gaps in the roof while rain falls inside, reflected in holes on the ground filled with water.
The paintings of the past two years continue to revisit the abandoned industrial ruins of Diósgyőr, combined with light and color phenomena that give the works a post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Across the meticulously rendered surfaces, areas of paint spread with a palette knife assume a role analogous to that of the smeared, scratched, and graffiti-covered windows in the earlier landscape paintings. They function as an obstructing filter before the image, compelling the viewer to engage in a more concentrated act of looking in order to perceive what is essential.
Rarely Appearing Figures
In a few paintings, however, human figures do appear. In some cases, these are personal acquaintances, turning the work into a kind of portrait, as in Housing Estate Idyl (2006, oil on canvas, 90 × 110 cm) or the portrait Sculptor Péter Varga (2011, oil on canvas, 173 × 158 cm). In other cases, figures appear who fulfill a specific function, their identity merging with the profession or role they perform. One example is The Empire (2012, oil on canvas, 140 × 100 cm), which depicts a guard standing on top of the Empire State Building in order to prevent accidents. The figure is thus associated with a strong sense of responsibility, and the painting also becomes a reflection on control and power. Another example is the depiction of a food delivery courier seen from behind in Futár (Courier (Hős (Hero)),2022, oil on canvas, 40 × 60 cm), where the central figure is the only character in the composition. His light blue clothing and characteristic cube-shaped delivery backpack make him easily identifiable.
Closing Remarks
In summary, it can be stated that Ábel Szabó does not paint historical buildings or ruins, nor fragments of the past. Rather, he depicts contemporary architectural complexes that define industrial cities – structures that drive people from rural areas into urban centers in search of opportunity and livelihood, replacing the natural and agricultural landscapes of rural life with forests of streetlights and billboards.
Given that these works depict man-made spaces and architectural environments, one may ask whether, in the sense proposed by Marc Augé, they represent “places” or “non-places.” The French anthropologist distinguishes culturally meaningful places – those to which we form emotional and identity-based attachments – from transitional, anonymous, and identityless spaces that do not allow for such connections. In this sense, an industrial ruin, an empty market hall, or an abandoned tram stop would qualify as non-places. Szabó’s paintings frequently present such spaces. To interpret them, the concept of Umwelt is useful. Coined by Jakob von Uexküll, a pioneer of ethology, the term refers to the subjective environment in which an organism exists and perceives the world. In contemporary urban life, the environment that surrounds us is often not pleasant or homely, but rather uncomfortable and alienating. For the urban subject, these spaces (or non-places) still function as an Umwelt, because individuals are compelled – here in a globally conditioned sense of compulsion – to inhabit a reality that is not inherently welcoming. Ábel Szabó’s painting directs attention precisely toward this perception. As a result, what initially appears as familiar urban scenery becomes something else entirely. We are not looking at buildings, nor at an archaeology of urban existence, nor at virtuoso hyperrealist canvases. The strength of these works lies in the fact that masterful painterly technique becomes the medium of a deeper intellectual process. It returns us to the perception of everyday, often uncomfortable environments. For this reason, we cannot simply turn away. The discomfort is replaced by curiosity. The artist’s finely modeled layers of paint produce unusual, “inappropriately beautiful” light effects and atmospheres, making us feel as if the pictorial space itself is alive on the canvas. The activated work of art opens up perception: we are able to look behind things, and beyond deceptive appearances we understand the artist’s intention and the reality behind the visible world to which we are invited as viewers.