Eszter Szabó: "179.-"

Eszter Szabó is a Hungarian artist who creates animations, drawings, aquarelles and oil paintings. She explores different aspects of everyday life by recreating situations based on her observations. Often Szabó mixes characteristics of different individuals, filtering them down to what she perceives as the ‘essence’ of those living in a post-communist society.

Szabó sees the infantile characters featured in her work as the cause and result of a paternal, controlling government. In a post-communist country, powerful residues of the past continue to deeply affect the everyday lives of its citizens. Within the clothes, furniture, houses, habits and expressions on people's faces there remain traits so familiar that they practically become invisible.

Between 2007 and 2009 Szabó created a large body of work dealing with contemporary Jane and John Dow’s commuting on the streets. She made a series of palm size aquarelles on latex and some video loops based on these paintings. 179.-, depicts people waiting in line for something that costs 179HUF (70 cents).


Biography

Eszter Szabó is a painter and video artist based in Budapest (HU) and Lille (FR).

She graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2006 and currently is completing her post graduate studies at Le Fresnoy, France. In 2010 she won the Derkovits Scholarship, a grant for emerging artists in Hungary. Szabó has had several solo exhibitions throughout Hungary and Europe, including Taiss Galerie, Paris (FR); Jozsa Gallery in Bruxelles (BE) and Artists Unlimited Gallery, Bielefeld (DE). She also takes part in numerous group shows and art fairs throughout the world.

Currently Eszter Szabó is represented by ACB gallery in Budapest.