Three things with Abdul Abdullah: ‘I saw a TikTok that said if you’re a grown man who uses a backpack, you’ve made some poor life choices’

Abdul Abdullah’s work interrogates otherness and Australian identity with a precision that has led to him being shortlisted many times for the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. While the potency of his art is constant, his approach is always shifting. Some works are photographic self-portraits, others are public installations of smiling faces or outstretched hands. In one 2022 piece he asked, in text painted across a 10m-wide canvas, what Australia’s public art collections would look like “if we divested them of sex pests and paedophiles”.
The Perth-born artist is now based in Bangkok, where he lives with his wife, the Bundjulung/Ngapuhi artist Amrita Hepi. He considers artworks – not his own pieces, but those made by friends and collaborators – to be his most prized possessions. Here he shares the story of one piece that hangs proudly at home and another lost, as well as the everyday item he relies on – even if TikTok tries to shame him for it.
I try not to be too sentimental about objects, and just about everything I own is replaceable – except for my art. And I don’t mean the art that I make myself, because I can always make more of that (and I don’t keep any of my own stuff at home), but the artworks I have collected over the years.
A work that stands out to me was a surprise gift from my studio team here in Bangkok. At the end of last year they surprised me with a painting they all worked on that featured several images of my wife and I taken from our engagement and wedding photos that we’d posted on Instagram. They had been working together for weeks in secret. We were both so touched and it has pride of place in our home.
It’s my backpack. I saw a TikTok that said something like if you’re a grown man who uses a backpack, you’ve made some poor life choices – but that seemed silly to me. I’m nothing if not practical and, as an artist, I’m always carrying things around. A good sturdy backpack is the best way to do it.
Whether I’m going to the studio or flying somewhere for a show, my backpack is with me most of the time. Beyond the daily necessities like an umbrella, my Thai phrase book, headphones and pencil case, it’s always carrying a book. I’ve been a keen reader and researcher for as long as I can remember but since 2020 I have pretty much exclusively been reading fantasy. My favourite fantasy authors are Joe Abercrombie and Robin Hobb, and I really enjoyed Babel by RF Kuang, which was recommended to me by my wife – who usually doesn’t read fantasy.
I pride myself on a couple of things – never having missed a flight, and not losing stuff. The one thing that came to mind that I have lost was an artwork by the Indonesian artist Arwin Hidayat. I’ve been working, exhibiting and engaging with artists throughout south-east Asia over the last decade and I met Arwin on my first trip to Yogyakarta. It was a seminal moment – I found a vibrant, dynamic arts community in the city and I would go on to establish a studio there.
Having been introduced to traditional batik painting by my Malay mother when I was very young, I was really excited to find an artist who used the technique in such a contemporary way, and was proud to be able to buy one and bring it back to Australia.
I’m embarrassed to write this because he might read this but, in the chaotic times of Covid lockdowns, I found myself living temporarily with my partner at the time and a friend in a share house. When I eventually found an apartment on my own I accidentally left the artwork behind and, by the time I figured it out, the occupancy of the share house had rotated and no one knew where it was.