After school he worked at a variety of jobs, as well as enrolling in and dropping out of various college and university courses, before he realised that art could be a profession.
He said in 2020:[4] I appreciate that I live in a privileged part of the world, yet it's also a deeply belligerent, inherently bigoted and selfish country that continues to destroy the environment for profit, imprison asylum seekers and is unable to acknowledge the colonial framework of violence that still defines us.
He carves wooden animals in a style which he calls "aestheticised realism" which is "realistic in terms of proportion and scale, but simplified and stylised".
What dictates our perceptions of the world, how are we perceived and how do we participate in that equation with autonomy.In 2018 both brothers were shortlisted to represent Australia in the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.
[7] Abdullah's first solo exhibition was in Perth in 2012, at an artist run initiative called Kurb, when he was a third-year student at Curtin, and sold his first artwork there.
[11] In 2014, The Obstacle, a life-size buffalo carved from jelutong wood, sunken into a Persian rug, featured at the Melbourne Art Fair.
[12] In April 2015, the Art Gallery of Western Australia held the inaugural "WA Focus" exhibition featuring the work of both Abdul and Abdul-Rahman.
[11] Also in April 2015, Abdullah's work was featured in the Here&Now15 exhibition of experimental sculpture at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia.
[11] In 2019, his large-scale installation entitled Pretty Beach, featuring painted wooden stingrays and crystal rain, was included in The National, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Called I am a heart beating in the world: Diaspora Pavilion 2, it was planned to become part of an international project for the Venice Biennale.