Description

Map of the West Indies, 1790. Born Alone, Die Alone. is an edition derived from the series “Crocodile Company: The War of the Dancing Machetes,” set in 1789 in the Caribbean. The artist loosely based this series on the actual “War of Knives” that was fought as a precursor to Haitian independence.

Limited to an edition of 20, each piece has been hand-finished in the artist's studio. No two prints are exactly alike, with all colors—red, blue, green, yellow, brown, and gold—painted by hand in the artist's studio.

Umar Rashid makes paintings, drawings, and sculptures chronicling the grand historical fiction of the Frenglish Empire (1648–1880), a narrative he’s developed for nearly two decades. Rashid draws on his extensive knowledge of global colonial history to create new stories that highlight the roles of race, gender, class, and power in historical narratives—both real and imagined. As viewers immerse themselves in his work, they are prompted to question whether the details come from the artist's imagination or actual history.
 

About the artist

Umar Rashid (b. 1976, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BA in cinema and photography from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. His work was featured at The Huntington and the Hammer Museum as part of the biennial Made in LA 2020: a version. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include Ancien Regime Change 4, 5, and 6, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2022); What is the color when black is burned? (The Gold War Part 1), University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ (2018); and The Belhaven Republic (A Delta Blues), University of Memphis Galleries A and B, Memphis, TN (2017). Rashid’s work is represented in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Jorge Pérez Collection, Miami, FL; Mount Holyoke Art Museum, South Hadley, MA; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, among others.