Youssef Nabil was born in Cairo in 1971. His career started in the 1990s when he started assisting top photographers such as David LaChapelle and Mario Testino. In 1999, Nabil returned to Egypt where he developed his signature technique of hand painting over his photographs. The artist’s combination of photography and painting results in works that possess a dreamlike and theatrical fragility. His distinctive style has been very popular and a variety of artists have posed for him, such as Tracy Emin, Gilbert and George, Marina Abramovic, Shirin Neshat, Zaha Hadid, Andreas Gursky and many others. Nabil’s work has been exhibited in the British Museum, the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Third Line Gallery in Dubai and at the Villa Medici in Rome. The artist currently resides between Paris and New York.