Subway Zombies by Top Kabana

"Subway Zombies" (30x24cm). Top Kabana. 2025. Acrylic on canvas. Original Piece.

Inside a New York City subway car, a society of green-skinned zombies travels in silence, absorbed in the artificial glow of their phone screens. Each figure is a reflection of our times: lifeless bodies, vacant expressions, or faces distorted by mechanical laughter, their eyes lost in the hypnosis of digital consumption. Some are crying at what they see on their screens, others appear dazed, trapped in a reality not their own but one dictated by their devices. There is no communication between them, no real interaction—only physical presence contrasting with the absence of true life in their faces.

At the center of the painting, one character breaks the monotony of this trance. Their skin is not green, their gaze is not buried in a phone, but fixed forward, filled with shock, as if they have spent the entire day grappling with a reality that no one else seems to notice. Their expression is a silent scream of awareness in the midst of apathy. They are the only human among zombies, a witness to a society that has lost its essence, devoured by technology, enslaved by its own creation.

The choice of the New York subway as the setting is intentional. It reflects what you have observed: collective isolation in a crowded space, the paradox of being surrounded by people yet more alone than ever. Subway Zombies is more than an image—it is a metaphor for our times, a critique of the dehumanization brought about by hyperconnectivity. In this scene, what was meant to connect us has instead separated us, and life, in its purest form, seems to be fading away behind the glow of a screen.