The waltz

Abdul Abdullah is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice can be seen as an ongoing investigation into narratives of displacement and alienation. A seventh-generation Muslim Australian of Malay/Indonesian and convict/settler Australian hertitage, Abdullah is interested in the tension between projected markers of identity and the reality of lived experience. Working across painting, photography, installation and textiles, Abdullah is sensitive to the political potency of images and iconography. Whether critiquing problematic cultural stereotypes or offering poignant observations about climate change, Abdullah’s work is fearless and insistent.

'The waltz' is a subversive landscape painting. Overlaying declarative text onto an otherwise idyllic scene, a technique he deploys often, Abdullah turns his composition into a political placcard. The painting addresses Australia’s brutal colonial past and reminds us that a landscape image is never neutral or apolitical.