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.
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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.
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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.
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Mikala Dwyer and Kay Abude
Pyjamas (Costumes)
2021
Digital print on organic cotton, Rasant thread, cotton bias binding, satin bias binding, plastic buttons
Exhibited as part of Dwyer's exhibition Bird at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney from 29 July - 28 August 2021
"In this cuckoo nest, hospitality is roguishly exploited. Dwyer speaks about planning to have the gallerist and gallery staff costumed in pyjamas as harlequin performers, in a masquerade designed (with Kay Abude) for the opening night. A pyjama party? Maybe there’s a playful allusion to the Playboy mansion parties and their host Hugh Hefner’s iconic outfit. But these pyjama patterns are overprinted with behavioural commands, stage directions for playing a bird: preening, flying…dying. I suspect a mischievous—and somewhat sinister—figure is hosting this sleepover." — excerpt from Edward Colless, 'The Sandman is Coming', Art Collector magazine, July - September 2021
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All photographs by Luis Power.
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