The subjects of Saber’s work include landscapes of mountains, plains, gardens, old trees, people and their daily lives, and also the spectacle of the migration of nomadic women, portraits and figures, and still lives.
In the early sixties, main subjects of his paintings were the people on the street and their daily lives. At that time, facial expressions were the basis of his work. In the mid-sixties, he became familiar with the works of Impressionist painters, especially Monet, Sisley and Pissarro, attention to nature and landscape became part of his work. The subject of his paintings at that time were landscapes, portraits and figures, a number of thematic works as well as still lifes, which he approached with various methods according to the nature of the subject. The range of practices he used included relatively Naturalist, Semi-impressionist and Expressionist approaches. His expressionist approach was especially visible in the portraits, thematic panels and some of his landscapes. From the mid-seventies onward, that approach gradually faded and was eventually abandoned; his colors gradually became brighter and more diverse. For a while, he developed a Pre-Raphaelite style and a semi-romanticism appeared in his panels.
In parallel with painting, he started black and white photography in late sixties. He used to develop the photos himself, resulting in gaining more knowledge and experience in this field. He took black and white photos for about ten years, and just made color photos in colored slides. Many photos and slides remain from that time. Then he was slowly taken into color photography and color printing. The result of these experiences is so far thousands of color photographs.
Saber began to rethink his painting after 1983. He revisited impressionism, post-impressionism and newer styles. He spent several years experiencing the various impressionist methods and then started practicing them. Many frames stem from that period. His repeated observations of nature made him more familiar with colors. He says:
“In my work, the color and light are not the subject on their own, but other subjects appear and merge in them, and in some of them they take on a metaphorical role.”
