Support Images
The obstacle
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah | 2014 | 48 x 130 x 235cm
AGWA collection
Exhibition history
Outland
Melbourne Art Fair 2014, Dianne Tanzer Gallery
Arcadia
Glen Eira Council Gallery VIC 2015
Curated by Dianne Soumilas
Everything is true
John Curtin Gallery, Perth Festival 2021
Curated by Chris Malcom
The obstacle draws on memories of wallowing water buffalo experienced during childhood visits to Kampung Linggi, the home village of Abdullah’s mother in central Malaysia. Obsolete as the primary working animals in the rice fields, it was the insurmountable presence of these animals that resonated with him, territorial bulls that openly defied incursion, comfortably resistant as apex trophies in their retirement. Bringing those ideas of ancestral ownership into a domestic environment, The Obstacle places an audience into that unnerving relationship that questions the hierarchy between human and animal.