Kay Abude is a multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her expanded sculptural practice encompasses large-scale installation, photography, performance, video, and silk 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, 2023 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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Kay Abude
WORK WORTH DOING
22 - 31 March 2019
Hand silk screen on linen sewn into garments and performed by staff at Shedshaker Brewery and Taproom for the Castlemaine State Festival 2019
Dimensions variable
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WORK WORTH DOING integrates art into local Castlemaine business Shedshaker Brewery and Taproom by inviting workers to don garments silkscreen printed with the words ‘Work Worth Doing’ during the 10-day festival. The words are adapted from a speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 – “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”.
The project invites the workers who are wearing the garments and audiences viewing the artwork to reflect on the nature of their labour. How do we find meaning in our everyday work lives? What is the value of doing a good job, to work hard and to give it our best? What makes our work worth doing?
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This project has been generously supported by a 2018 Arts Vic Grant from Creative Victoria and LaTrobe Art Institute. It is also kindly made possible by Shedshaker Brewery and Taproom and The Mill Castlemaine.