Abdullah M. I. Syed, Brut for Men Rose, 2013. Hand beaten stainless steel medallion chamak patti hand stickered ornamentation metal wood, 117 x 150 x 20cm. Courtesy: the artist and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney.

Common Threads Run Deep presents a cross-section of recent and previous work by Abdullah M.I. Syed. Syed’s art practice is a cerebral but also deeply personal and visually sophisticated one that draws on traditional and global 21st-century art practices. His provocations span identity politics, power structures, displacement and memory in a multidisciplinary practice.

Syed’s work hints at the value society places upon material objects as it invokes the less tangible but more sustaining values of family, home, the handmade and the communal. The transformative treatments of mundane, everyday items provide a meaningful anchor for his work as it takes on the delicate balancing act of bearing multiple, difficult and sometimes conflicting ideas. Works such as Brut For Men delve into ideas of the personal and familiar, esoteric knowledge and masculinity, using cultural emblems and figures and layering various techniques and media to give historical perspective and depth.

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