Mina Kupfermann (b. 1967, London) is a British-Israeli artist. Her father, a Holocaust refugee, was also an artist (Jacques Kupfermann, 1926–1987). She grew up with the smell of turps and the sounds of his palette knife filtering through the adjoining wall from his studio to her bedroom, alongside long periods of silence while he painted.
In 2016, while drawing elephants, Kupfermann became aware of a resonance between her passion for elephant conservation and her feelings about Jewish identity and survival. This marked the start of a body of work exploring the experience of antisemitism and the ideology around it.
Although not a particularly political person, she joined the activist group Labour Against Antisemitism to push back against anti-Jewish hatred within the Labour Party. Her large-scale work, Witness (2019), was the product of data gathered from this time and her experience of being gaslit in what was becoming an increasingly hostile environment for people speaking out against antizionist antisemitism.
After October 7th, 2023, Kupfermann began tentatively contacting friends and families of the victims of the Nova festival massacre at Re’im, to see whether they might agree for their loved ones to be depicted in a painting. Nova (2024) was created with the eight people whose loved ones came forward and was followed by several more paintings.
The information, shared experience and refinement of thinking that have emerged from the network of people confronting anti-Jewish hatred – whether academic, street activist or creative – have all been important reference points for Kupfermann’s work.
There is a photo of her father in her studio; their close bond informing an ongoing interior conversation that continues to have a presence in her art and life.
Awards, exhibitions, books and press
WITNESS exhibition, JW3, London, March/April 2025, curated by Manick Govinda and Mina Kupfermann, in tandem with Contemporary Antisemitism, London 2025, the largest academic conference on the topic this decade, co-hosted by the London Centre for Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the University of Haifa.
Witness (artwork):
- awarded 2nd prize for the Combat Antisemitism Emma Lazarus Award, 2019
- exhibited at panel event commemorating Kristallnacht, JW3, 2020 and at WITNESS exhibition, JW3, London, March/April 2025
- featured in the the Jewish Chronicle, 2020
- presented at the Robert Fine Memorial Lecture, 2023
- featured on the cover of The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century, edited by David Hirsh, 2023.
Book cover, Responses to 7 October: 3-volume set, edited by Rosa Freedman and David Hirsh, 2024.
‘Seven Days’, an ongoing art-music film collaboration with composer Matthew Sear, featured in the Jewish Chronicle, 2021.
‘Seven Days’ audiovisual concert with Matthew Sear, Blackheath Halls, London, 2021.
Hello! Magazine feature, Rachel Riley receives most thoughtful gift for baby Maven, 2020.