Ames Yavuz is excited to present Witness, Abdul Abdullah’s 6th solo presentation with the gallery.

In his latest series titled, Witness, Abdul Abdullah follows on and expands on previous projects examining the difference between the perception and assumptions of a person or group, and their lived experience. In these works, we peer into one’s daily, internal battle with their own conflicts and competing values. Abdullah paints a ghostly cat sitting upon or walking beside a horse in a fantastical landscape. Interested in the significance of cats, horses, and other domesticated animals in fiction, Abdullah explores how they have been used to represent and be placeholders for otherwise human characteristics, and in some cases, narrates for an unseen audience.

The artist explains, “I imagined these animals that often live beside us and among us as vessels for our human projections, and also witnesses to what we do. He continues, “I see us as both creatures, where one is the Id, and one is the super ego, or one is the voice of doubt or caution, and the other the force of purpose.”

Abdullah’s multi-disciplinary practice is motivated by a longstanding concern on the complex feelings of displacement, alienation, and the disjunctures between perception/projection of identity and the reality of lived experience. Identifying as a Muslim and having both Malay/Indonesian and convict/settler Australian heritage, Abdullah occupies a precarious space in the political discourse that puts him at odds with popular definitions.