Nadim Sabella was born in Geilenkirchen, Germany, in 1977. He attended the archaeology program at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, in 1997. The following year he moved to San Francisco, California to pursue his degree in fine arts. Sabella joined the photography department at the City College of San Francisco in 1999. Two years later he was awarded first prize in the College’s annual photography contest. He joined the San Francisco Art Institute’s photography department in 2001 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003. Upon graduation he received the SFAI Spring Show 2003 Photography Award.

His work has been exhibited at the Michaelis Gallery in Capetown South Africa, Provo Art Center Gallery in Provo, Utah, at the San Francisco City Hall, California and numerous galleries in San Francisco and the Bay Area. As part of the SFAI Photo Exchange, his work is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Art Institute and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Sabella's photographs taken in the deserts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona are an investigation of the physical effects that forces of nature have on people's abandoned cars and homes. He has traveled thousands of miles on lonesome highways, forlorn byways and hopeless dead ends to find the remains of past life. His photographs tell stories as much as they raise questions.