Born 1986, Perth, WA. Lives and works Sydney, New South Wales and Bangkok, Thailand.

Abdul Abdullah is an Australian multidisciplinary artist working across portraiture, photography and painting. As a self-described ‘outsider amongst outsiders’, his practice is primarily concerned with the experience of the ‘other’. Abdullah’s projects have engaged with marginalised communities, and he is particularly interested in the disconnect between perception of identity and the reality of lived experiences.

Identifying as a Muslim and having both Malay/Indonesian and convict/settler Australian heritage, Abdullah sees himself as an artist working in the peripheries of a peripheral city, in a peripheral country, orbiting a world on the brink. Abdullah is a 7th generation Australian, but he still gets asked that question, 'Are you Muslim or Australian?' and he still answers, 'Both'.

Abdul Abdullah has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Curtin University, WA. Abdullah has been exhibiting since 2008 and his work has been shown extensively across Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Germany. Abdullah’s work is held in the HOTA Collection, the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane), Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Thailand). In 2019, he was awarded the inaugural Australian Muslim Artist Art Prize. He is also a five-time Archibald Prize finalist and five-time Sulman Prize finalist, the most prestigious art prizes in Australia, a rarity for an artist of his years.

Image courtesy of the artist and Ames Yavuz.