Yavuz Gallery is pleased to announce Abdul Abdullah's fourth solo exhibition with the Gallery, titled Magical Thinking. This new body of work continues Abdullah's series of anthropomorphised rocks within vivid natural idylls, presenting playful, animist encounters along an imagined journey. Abdullah paints detailed landscapes appropriated from stock image banks and then enlivens them with bold emoji faces and humanised gestures in his signature white lines. These rocky sentinels act as markers for new beginnings, offering an embrace or a wave that imply a sense of reunion after a period of departure.
Magical Thinking is Abdullah's first solo show in Australia in four years and expands upon his long-standing explorations of migration, displacement, and journeys. This holds particular significance for the artist in parallel to his recent move from Sydney to Bangkok. His new paintings greet and encourage those that wander new paths, embodying moments of joy, anxiety, and self-reflection. The artist explains, "Coming across a bit of kindness and consideration on a hard journey can sometimes be the difference between getting to your destination and turning back. For me, these rocks are the encouragement or contemplation you might stumble across while you're on the way to where you are going."
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 easy definitions. Grounding his irreverent outlook in an expansive cultural geography that belies reductive boundaries of nationality, Abdullah represents a new face of emerging artists from the Asia-Pacific region.
As a seventh-generation Muslim Australian of mixed ethnicity who grew up in suburban Perth (an 'outsider amongst outsiders'), Abdul Abdullah's (b. 1986) multi-disciplinary practice is motivated by a longstanding concern on the complex feelings of displacement and alienation associated with histories of diaspora and migration. Providing a voice to these rarely told topics, he creates carefully crafted political commentaries that speak of the 'Other' and the experiences of marginalised communities. While the fraught dynamic of Muslim experiences have provided the initial framework, Abdullah has consciously expanded his practice to include a broader sense of marginalisation. Intersecting between popular culture, contemporary conflicts and personal experience, his recent works renegotiate histories and create space for alternative possibilities and new conversations. Grounding his outlook with an expansive cultural geography that belies reductive boundaries of nationality, Abdullah represents a new face of emerging artists from the Asia-Pacific region.
Ames Yavuz embraces its diverse cultural background through a strong international focus and perspective. The gallery’s vision is underpinned by robust curatorial practices that form the core of our program and foster intercultural discourse on a global scale.
