Kay Abude is a multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne, Australia, whose expanded sculptural practice spans large-scale installation, photography, performance, video, and screen printing. Abude’s work is about work itself: the value of it, the effort, the inequality and insecurity of it, especially for artists.
​
Recent commissions include BE CREATIVE REMAIN RESILIENT, Mural Commission, The Showroom, London, UK, 2023–24, and Smoko Room, Paul Selzer Prize, Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Southbank, 2023.
​
Abude has been the recipient of numerous grants, including Creative Australia Project Grants in 2025 and 2023, Hume Arts Activity Grants in 2025 and 2022, a City of Melbourne Creative Laneways Project Grant in 2021, and a Play King Foundation Grant at the Australian Tapestry Workshop in 2020. Abude was a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, from 2019 to 2022.
​
Kay Abude
NEVER WORK/ STOP WORKING
2021
Silk screen on cotton work aprons
Exhibited as part of Triennial EXTRA at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne from 27 January - 14 February 2021
Kay Abude’s NEVER WORK / STOP WORKING draws attention to the work being undertaken by catering staff in the NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden and makes their labour visible as a form of performance during Triennial EXTRA. The artwork invites reflection from the service staff adorning Abude’s hand silk screen-printed work aprons and Triennial EXTRA audiences on ideas about the nature and meaning of work and labour in our current climate. The text depicted on their work aprons is appropriated from artworks by Guy Debord (Never work!, 1953) and Rirkrit Tiravanija (Untitled 2015 (14,086 unfired), 2015.
All photographs by Margund Sallowsky.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
