Creating Wonder Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

“I remember standing out on the jetty as a kid, watching groups of stingrays glide beneath me, tracing arcs through the shallow water …”

Otherworldly dispositions permeate wood-carved sculptures in lifelike scale. To be in the presence of these artworks feels like stumbling upon fragments of a dream, in which time is suspended, bound up in a meditative stillness. Abdul-Rahman Abdullah’s artistry is that of a master storyteller. But the story itself is not prescriptive: it is for the audience to discover, stirred into consciousness from the annals of our own memories; compelled into being by a sense of familiarity that can feel so deeply personal, yet is universally shared.

Family is the cornerstone of Abdullah’s practice, as well as the centre of his universe. ‘Nearly everything