Steve Sabella
Steve Sabella, born in Jerusalem in 1975, is a Palestinian artist based in London. He is the holder of the Ellen Auerbach award (2008) granted by the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts) in Berlin, short listed for the Terry O'Neil Award of Contemporary Photography in the UK, and was a prize winner in the 2002 Qattan Foundation Young Artist Award in Palestine.
Sabella exhibited widely in Palestine in several solo shows, triggering much media attention in both Palestinian and Israeli TV and printed press. He also participated in several international group exhibitions in Europe, Canada and the USA, most notably The Gates of Mediterranean in Italy (curated by Martina Corgnati) and Neighbors in Dialogue in Istanbul and Sarajevo (curated by Beral Madra) where the work has become part of the permanent collection of the Ars Aevi museum in Sarajevo. Steve Sabella is part of the two-year touring group exhibition (2009) Palestinian Creative Art at the Institute Du Monde Arabe in Paris.
His project Jerusalem in Exile explored the mental image Palestinians held of Jerusalem and has gained international attention, leading to its production into a short documentary film. Consequently, Sabella is currently giving a visual form through photomontage to the 'state of mind' of living in 'mental exile'. This new work, in exile, will be published through the Academy of the Arts in Berlin as art book in 2009.
Steve Sabella studied art photography for three years at the Jerusalem School of Photography and New Media in 1994, and holds a BA in Visual Arts from the State University of New York (2007). Through a Chevening Scholarship, Sabella has earned a Master's degree with a Caparo Award of distinction in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster (2008), and through a Said Foundation Scholarship, he is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Art Business at Sotheby's Institute of Art in London.
Steve Sabella's artworks are featured in the new book, Contemporary Arab Art in the New Century which is published by Thames & Hudson and Transgloben (2009). Sabella's earlier works were reviewed in the new book on Palestinian Art published by Saqi Books in Feb. 2009.
