Abdul Abdullah Everything ever all at once

I treat the symbols in my paintings like words in a sentence. When arranged, these sentences may not be obviously decipherable, with deliberate spaces left for interpretation. Here, I have overlaid an image of an explosion with a figure inspired by political satire of the 1930s and 1940s. While not appropriating anything specific, it is designed to be familiar. The deliberate use of irreverent, playful imagery over the serious speaks to the ways we engage with and feel our way through information, whether tragic or just seemingly insurmountable, that we sense is beyond us – as if we’re feeling everything ever all at once.

Abdul Abdullah, 2019