[1] Abdulla was born in 1947 at Swan Reach, on the Murray River, in the Murraylands region of South Australia.
[2] In 1991 Abdulla was named South Australian Aboriginal Artist of the Year, and was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship in 1992.
[4] Abdulla's work featured on the cover of the World Health Organization's annual report.
[6][7] On the morning of 29 January, at the age of 63, he died at the Berri Hospital, South Australia after a brief battle with cancer.
Abdulla's handpainted annotations briefly describe the scene depicted and are placed dead centre at the top of his paintings.