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Umar Rashid

Chicago-born artist Umar Rashid (also known as Frohawk Two Feathers) currently lives and works in Los Angeles. The son of a playwright and actor, Rashid grew up in theatres and soon developed a sensibility for storytelling. Rashid’s body of works focuses on a reexamination of European imperialism and touches on subjects such as structural violence and social injustices through a post-colonial perspective. Tired of the traditional, one-sided historical narrative, solely focusing on dominant groups, Rashid feels the urgency to give space to alternative and concurrent versions.

Rashid finds inspiration in everything that surrounds him – from old illuminated manuscripts, Native American ledger drawings, primitive art paintings, Mughal Persian miniature paintings, Indonesian Batik, Hmong story cloth, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian Babylonian cuneiform, Roman mosaics, Greek black-line pottery, and Japanese woodblock prints to African sculpture. Many of Rashid's works have a political commentary anchored in the darker side of history, but Rashid lightheartedly proposes alternative narratives that play upon power dynamics. Residing somewhere between humor and protest, his works evoke awareness of the majority of individuals whose stories and lives have been erased from history.

Umar graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL, USA. His works are in numerous museum collections including, but not limited to, the Brooklyn Museum, Hudson River Museum, Nevada Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. He has exhibited internationally, including most recently at MoMA PS, Dordrechts Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Blum & Poe, Half Gallery, and in Made in L.A. 2020: A Version at the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library. Rashid lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

  • Biography

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Selected artworks

  • Live free or Dior. Bathe in lava, colonizer! Lapita Prime, 1796, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 x 3.8 cm - 72 x 72 in
    Live free or Dior. Bathe in lava, colonizer! Lapita Prime, 1796, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 x 3.8 cm - 72 x 72 in

    Umar Rashid Live free or Dior. Bathe in lava, colonizer! Lapita Prime, 1796, 2022

    Acrylic and ink on canvas
    182.9 x 182.9 x 3.8 cm
    72 x 72 in

  • We can handle this like warriors or, get into some gangster shit. Mauritania Prime, 1796, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in
    We can handle this like warriors or, get into some gangster shit. Mauritania Prime, 1796, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in

    Umar Rashid We can handle this like warriors or, get into some gangster shit. Mauritania Prime, 1796, 2022

    Acrylic and ink on canvas
    182.9 x 182.9 cm
    72 x 72 in

  • An incident at Lover’s Cove part 2. Manman Dlo is not for the bullshit and thus, your ending, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in
    An incident at Lover’s Cove part 2. Manman Dlo is not for the bullshit and thus, your ending, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in

    Umar Rashid An incident at Lover’s Cove part 2. Manman Dlo is not for the bullshit and thus, your ending,, 2022

    Acrylic and ink on canvas
    182.9 x 182.9 cm
    72 x 72 in

  • The iceman cometh and is forced to retreat. The dance on the tundra on Abenaki Prime, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in
    The iceman cometh and is forced to retreat. The dance on the tundra on Abenaki Prime, 2022 - Acrylic and ink on canvas - 182.9 x 182.9 cm - 72 x 72 in

    Umar Rashid The iceman cometh and is forced to retreat. The dance on the tundra on Abenaki Prime, 2022

    Acrylic and ink on canvas
    182.9 x 182.9 cm
    72 x 72 in

  • Tennyson 2nd Movement ( Le Morte D’ Arthur) Noah defeats Wilander on Mars, 2021 - Acrylic, mica, and spray paint on canvas - 121.96 x 121.96 cm - 48 1/8 x 48 1/8 in
    Tennyson 2nd Movement ( Le Morte D’ Arthur) Noah defeats Wilander on Mars, 2021 - Acrylic, mica, and spray paint on canvas - 121.96 x 121.96 cm - 48 1/8 x 48 1/8 in

    Umar Rashid Tennyson 2nd Movement ( Le Morte D’ Arthur) Noah defeats Wilander on Mars, 2021

    Acrylic, mica, and spray paint on canvas
    121.96 x 121.96 cm
    48 1/8 x 48 1/8 in

Gallery exhibitions

Museum exhibitions

Selected press