Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers USA) Comely Gigi with the Tattooed Eyelids, 2010

Signed, titled and dated: "COMELY GIGI WITH THE TATTOOED EYELIDS Frohawk TwoFeathers 10" on the revers

Throughout his paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers) creates a fictional universe, which he calls the “Frenglish Empire,” in order to reimagine colonial history. The artist depicts the characters, conflicts, artifacts, and ephemera that hail from this invented world superpower, which ruled a transcontinental dominion from 1648 to 1880. Frohawk Two Feathers conjures a cast of both illustrious and everyday subjects—many of whom are people of color—as he explores issues of race, class, power, and the instability of public histories. His disparate references include Renaissance portraiture, Persian miniatures, hip-hop, cosmological diagrams, comic books, and Native American ledger art. Frohawk Two Feathers studied cinema and photography at the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale before focusing on his studio art practice. He has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, London, Rotterdam, and Cape Town, among other cities, and his work can be found in the collections of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, the Brooklyn Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Wellin Museum of Art.