Umar Rashid

Ha! While there are innumerable villains and heroes throughout the historical record, I tend to look at this from a cosmic perspective, meaning all of us human beings are capable of being either one. However, the way our most tragic human existence has played out, there is some notable villainy (almost cartoonish) that I choose to single out. Case in point, European colonialism, The African Slave Trade, and the massacre and religious conversion of a large population of the indigenous peoples of the Americas are all things that I do not equivocate on. And I do this because I began my narrative in 1658 and ended it in 1880 (for now), when all these atrocities took place.
But much like all periods in time, I take a few detours and make a departure from the trauma porn to show the everyday lives of the people. Their joys, their pain, and their indifference. Love, cruelty, affection, and violence exist independently of the ‘system lords.’ These things are inherently human and thus belong in my narrative. Also, as I do more research on the history of the world, I find myself delving into the histories of other polities that have been ravaged by the aforementioned maladies, including Europe itself. Although it began as a fever dream of a Black man, raised on lies and misconstrued truths, self-hatred, and fed a daily diet of dogma, fear, and recrimination.
I have created an unabridged, alternative history of the one in which we currently exist as a radical denouncement of the misery minstrel show. A window into all possible futures and a heavy dose of wit, humour, and sarcasm. Another reality. Another world.

Keeping it a buck, the casual flip is a constant process because the big flip occurred when I recognised a malleable point in time, halted the history we think we know and created a new branch. I chose the death of Oliver Cromwell to achieve this end because the global chaos truly ramped up one thousandfold after this moment. One could also point to the voyages of European fortune seekers to the Americas, spearheaded by the Spanish Empire as well. Or the decline of the Silk Road in part due to the pre-eminence of Venice and Genoa, surpassing their Arab and Ottoman competition for exotic goods from Asia and Africa as a malleable point in history as well. In some works, I do manage to reference these times as well, so they are still useful and quite relevant to the narrative as a whole.

In the beginning, this aspect of the work was a huge hurdle. The earlier texts that I would use for my research were full of one-sided ideas about the early age of colonialism. Most of these tomes were written in a completely racist and brutal tone. But, as I discovered other ‘humanist’ sources that had been reprinted along with actual accounts of the brutality written by the affected parties, I began to see other avenues from which I could create a more nuanced narrative.

Not every European was some textbook villain, and not every ‘black, red, brown, yellow’ person was a paragon of virtue. All the people and places I read about had different ways of doing things. Thus, their stories had different outcomes. I even went out on a limb early on to talk about the African and Arab slave traders who dealt with European slavers to keep that enterprise profitable and ongoing when it was not a popular subject to speak on. And the violence, though terrible, is necessary because that is what happened.
But make no mistake. In many instances, the people who were tortured and forced into labour often achieved revenge on their tormentors and it was more common than one would expect. That’s part of the reason why enslavement, though brutal, came to an ignominious end. And those early tomes I spoke of earlier scantily contained any evidence of these micro-revolutions. And now we know of many. The Haitian Revolution being the most famous and one of my original motivations to create this work.

My secret to this deft balancing act is that it is a superpower of any oppressed people. The ability to laugh in the face of fear is one of the most powerful things one can do. Also, I’m a storyteller, and I come from a background in theatre and musical performance, like rapping and singing, from the churches of my youth to the rap battles of my middle years. Telling a great story requires a great range of emotions despite the nature of the subject. This convention also helps to draw people into the narrative when the viewer would not otherwise be invested.
I didn’t set out to yell into an echo chamber. I encourage dialogue with those that I disagree with and those that disagree with me. And I don’t believe that adding humour makes a serious topic less serious or disingenuous. A good friend once told me that the court jester could make fun of the king/queen in their own court and live to see the morning while an advisor of some nominal import would be maimed or killed for a similar offense. At the end of the day, I speak many truths to many people, and I still have my head.

I decided to create Frengland first, as a joke, because of the millennia-long antagonism between France and England. Secondly, if they allied with each other, it would force the rest of Europe to organise differently to combat their combined power on land and sea. This near-constant war would weaken the European influences in the colonies and subjected lands, giving them time to use the knowledge of their enemy to create a suitable defense against the colonising forces and achieve autonomy somehow. I’ve painted several of these alternative scenarios already and have more planned for the future, but around 2014/2015, I shifted my focus from the literal empire to a cosmic abstract where the supreme enemy is not a terrestrial foe but an ideological system, often in space, that I refer to as control.

I changed focus because the more I research and create work based on historical patterns of conquest and subjugation, the driving element is always control. Also, I rarely get bored, and I have limitless ideas on how to move forward.  No artistic block here! The now is just an extension of the past, and the future is a dice game with good intentions, so I create in all of the temporal phases. And as far as human-made systems go, with the exception of an occasional leap in technology, nothing really changes, and we remain one of the most disharmonious beings to exist on this planet. However, hope springs eternal!

I respect and have deep admiration for all of the harmonious faiths of this planet and draw great inspiration from them all. I cannot put it into words because words would either be insufficient, or we would have to write a book! After spending my youth going to various Christian churches, I was introduced to Islam by many hip-hop artists who were affiliated with the 5 Percenters and The Nation of Islam, as well as many jazz musicians, before finding my way to Orthodox Islam. The way Islam speaks of submission to one that is greater than yourself and everything else is very humbling. The community is also a bastion of strength. It advocates for peace and each individual is responsible for the community. I’m not so naive to say that this is the only interpretation of this faith, but it is what I’ve come to know. Shintoism amazes me because, within all things is life, this world could use an ego death and a hard reset.

(Laughs) I use pop culture for two reasons. One is to make the work eternally relevant to as many people as possible. It is the majority of the ‘now’ that I reference in my work, other than the oppressive systems of control, that we seem unable to shake. Hell, I just caught myself. Pop culture is an element of that same oppressive system. Oh well. Two, it’s the audio-visual track to my id and helps me to combine past, present, and future whilst sprinkling in some humour along the way. Just wait for the Battle of Long Beach!

The four large paintings at Dallas Contemporary are an extension of my series on the Spanish Empire and its hegemony in North America. I have been writing and painting this particular narrative for twelve years. Since the exhibition was in Texas, I made paintings of four specific regions: The Southeast, The Northeast, The Southwest, and The Northwest. It is my great hope that these paintings will be a part of a large book someday, along with my writings about the Indigenous polities. Along with various adventurers, bandits, Jesuit clergy, and, of course, colonising settlers with armed accomplices.
The beginning of my interest in this part of the narrative began when I moved to East LA in the early 2000s.  Due to Los Angeles being a very segregated city, I found myself in a majority Mexican neighbourhood. Which makes sense considering this entire state was once Mexico, and I lived in that apartment for twenty years and raised my family there. Over time, I began to absorb the culture, as any guest should, and my admiration for it made it into my work. Learning the complex, old ancestral ties to these lands, as well as the modern histories, resonated with my own ancestral and modern ties with the North American continent. This was the first time I had realised the promise of Black and Brown unity and the necessity of it.

My love for history as a child and the curiosity of knowing my roots and the lives and experiences of the myriads of people that I encounter fuels my desire to see the entire world thusly. The futuristic element is the third and binding component of my journey. Although I can realise various futures along these lines, I can’t realistically expect my viewers to ‘get’ what I’m doing. It’s a work in progress. And as a non-linear being, I often don’t know what will be the form of this as it continues. I like it, so I do it.

As Black and Brown people reclaim our identity and our voices and study the pitfalls of our previous errors, we can make a better world for all. But, as long as we are indoctrinated in the ways of our oppressors, this cannot be so. We are already living according to the principles of the colonial godfathers, so our own uniqueness must be realised and harnessed before throwing it into the fondue pot to get erased again.
On the topic of current events, these times will no doubt return again in some reiteration. Although perhaps it is my age but this is my least favourite time in all of recorded human history. Everything is laid out before us, yet many of us would rather make war, bicker online, or worse, do absolutely nothing. Sure, education is eternal, but I feel we are running in place, and then, to hand that hamster and the wheel over to artificial intelligence is complete folly.

Because I’m a storyteller first, I like to do everything that I can to tell the best stories. Plus, I like working with my hands. My ancestors were blacksmiths, so maybe the desire to mould objects with my hands is within me. Also, as far as aesthetics go, I don’t like looking at a room full of 2D paintings. I want it to be like a well-curated curio shop with wondrous things to see and read at every turn.

I try to use bold and dynamic colours to instantly arrest the viewer. Once they are drawn in, the intricacies seem to pop out of every space. Sometimes, I enjoy making monochromatic work. It really depends on what kind of atmosphere I want to convey at the time.

Kagetora’s Dream was an old idea I had that just happened to manifest as I am represented by Blum Gallery and was offered a solo exhibition in Tokyo. Given Japan’s colonialist past, this was a difficult show to create. So I had to do a deep dive into the history of the colonial invasions of Korea in the 16th century. I decided on a story of rebellion against the Tokugawa Bakufu (government council) and turned the once proud warriors into Wokou pirates who originally came from various countries in East Asia, including Korea and China. When all respective governments in the area cracked down on piracy severely, the crew embarked on a quest to retrieve a giraffe from Tanzania.
I first saw the evidence of this in an old Ming Dynasty painting. The giraffe was thought to be a Qilin (Japanese: Kirin), a mythical creature of Chinese origin that brings luck. On the way to Tanzania, they raided various European settlements along the way. And now, this story will be a part of my new series on the magnificence of the Silk Road and its near-total absorption by European colonialists. It also serves as a tale of outsiders trying to survive in an ever-changing world.

If the work isn’t challenging or doesn’t make one uncomfortable at times, that means that I haven’t done my job, and I’d be better off painting landscapes, flowers, or abstract scenes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s just not for me. Also, I’m merely reinterpreting a version of history we all are familiar with and adding some dimension to the myopia of that time. I add the beauty along with the hideous and with the futuristic elements, something entirely different. I think people would be attracted to that. Alas, even if I sanitised my narrative for the comfort of my viewers, I’d be disingenuous, and somebody is probably going to dislike it anyway. This age of this world is not iron or gold; it’s porcelain.

The first large Silk Road painting will be going to Qatar (Mathaf) as part of a group exhibition curated by the great Sara Raza in October and I will debut my second solo exhibition with Blum Gallery Los Angeles, The Epoch of Totalitarianism Part 2: The Kingdom of the Two California’s Before the Advent of Exploitable Gold, Oil, and Other Tales, a six-part narrative that looks at the ripple effect of the Frenglish Revolution and the reversion back to an empire in California and the Eastern Pacific. I also have a printout with Foreign and Domestic Editions, and I’m finally releasing and re-releasing a couple of rap albums.