Steve Sabella is a Berlin-based artist who uses photography and photographic installation as his principal modes of expression. Sabella’s 2014 solo exhibitions include Fragments at Berloni Gallery in London, Layers at Contemporary Art Platform (CAP), Kuwait, Archaeology of the Future at the International Center for Photography Scavi Scaligeri in collaboration with Boxart Gallery in Verona andIndependence at Meem Gallery in Dubai.
In 1997 he earned a three-year art photography degree at the Musrara School of Photography in Jerusalem. In 2007 he received a BA in Visual Studies at Empire State College of the State University of New York. Through a Chevening Scholarship he earned an MA in Photographic Studies in 2008 at the University of Westminster with a Caparo Award of Distinction, and through a Saïd Foundation Scholarship he earned his second MA in art business in 2009 at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Sabella was one of the winners of the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award in 2002. He was a shortlisted and exhibited artist in the 2008 Independent Photographers Terry O’Neil Award in the United Kingdom. He received the 2008 Ellen Auerbach Award from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, which included in part the publishing of Sabella’s 2014 monograph.
From the late 1990s through 2007 Sabella was based in Jerusalem and exhibited internationally as well as extensively throughout Palestine, including eleven solo shows. He was one of the commissioned artists for the Istanbul Collection donated to the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art in Sarajevo. In 2009 he was one of the commissioned artists for the inauguration of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, where he presented the installation Settlement––Six Israelis & One Palestinian. His work was included in the show Keep Your Eye on the Wall as a part of Les Rencontres d’Arles Photographie, Edition 2013, and in 2014 he participated in the FotoFest Biennial exhibition View from Inside. In 2014 he was commissioned by the Bahrain National Museum, where he presented his photographic series Sinopia as part of the touring exhibition Recreational Purpose.
His work is held in the collections of the British Museum, London; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait; Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art, Sarajevo; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Cuadro Fine Art Gallery, in Dubai; Salsali Private Museum, Dubai; and the Samawi Collection, Dubai, as well as other private collections.