Iraqi artist Nedim Kufi uses mixed media to express his personal experience of being separated from his tumultuous homeland and settling in Europe in search of stability. Kufi was born in Baghdad in 1962 and left Iraq, and his family, after serving in the Iraqi military during the Iran-Iraq war. He settled in the Netherlands and has utilised many materials and mechanisms - organic henna, handmade paper, video, animation and installation - to narrate his struggle with departing his homeland for a life in Europe.

In his series “Absence”, Kufi juxtaposes photographs of himself as a child at his Iraqi home of Kufa in the 1960s alongside parallel images where his persona is removed using Photoshop in order to, as he describes, “portray my feelings of void and banishment.” “It is an expression of the disconnect between the home of my childhood and the country I see today as an expatriate,” he said in an interview with UAE newspaper Gulf News in 2010.

Kufi studied printmaking and sculpture in Baghdad before completing studies in Europe. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions across the Middle East, United States and Europe.