This Thursday, May 16th, Third Thursday with Jasper presents a reception at the Koger Center for the Arts featuring the work of artists Cedric Umoja and Jarrett Jenkins. Umoja is a multidisciplinary artist based in Columbia who works in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpting, filmmaking, installation work, and performance art. Jenkins (AKA Lefty Unz) is also a Columbia based multidisciplinary artist as well as a tattoo artist. He describes his art as “largely focused on majestic depictions of Black people, reimagining subjects from popular culture, and sociopolitical commentary on current events.”
The art shown at the reception will have a focus on Black culture, Hip Hop culture, the tattoo scene, and the corresponding overlap of cultural attitudes and ideas.
The event will also feature Fat Rat da Czar, current president Love, Peace & Hip Hop, the organization responsible for Hip Hop Family Day, who will deliver a special announcement about that upcoming event.
Before the show, Jasper was given the opportunity for a virtual interview with featured artist Cedric Umoja.
Jasper: Your work takes on quite a variety of mediums! What was the first medium(s) you found yourself drawn to when you began to create art? And how would you characterize your progression as an artist?
Umoja: Pencils, pens and printer paper were the most accessible as a child. These made me feel as if I had graduated from being just a child, especially since crayons and markers were more age appropriate.
Jasper: how would you characterize your progression as an artist?
Umoja: I went from thinking I understood how to make Art to reimagining what the Art I make could be. These ideas and practices are worlds apart from each other. There was a time when I was just a painter, but the need to convey my thoughts and ideas expanded as did my practice. Since then I’ve been a multidisciplinary artist for over five years. I’m constantly expanding how I engage others through my work. I see it as being able to speak different languages. The more languages you can speak, the more people you can communicate with. My Art is about engaging and communicating with its participants.
Jasper: In your artist bio on your website, I noticed that you say you seek to "enact alchemical change," which is a really interesting and expansive concept. Could you explain a bit about what that means to you?
Umoja: Enacting alchemical change when it comes to my work has to do with aligning my intentions to impact there for positive growth in themselves with the proper visual stimuli that conjures those conditions which cause emotion to arise. It’s through medium, intention and imagery that this becomes possible!
Jasper: It's really cool that this show seems to be a reflection on really neat elements of Black culture, like Hip Hop. I think it's really cool that there is this sort of duality intertwined in Hip Hop as the music and the culture sprung up as a reaction to state sanctioned disenfranchisement and strife, but much of the genre, both early on and in the present, is also able to demonstrate a certain lightheartedness and lively fun. I found your art, with all of its vibrancy and, in many places, its pointed political messaging, very similar in that way. How do you find yourself balancing severity with playfulness as you create?
Umoja: The balance is found in life itself! The opening to one of my favorite anime flicks “Fist of The North Star” speaks to this. The pendulum swinging in one direction must eventually swing in favor of its opposite. So, playfulness is necessary as it allows those who participate with my work the space to deal with what I’m communicating without feeling all the heaviness of the subject matter loaded into my work. I took a page from my Granny’s book, put the medicine in the candy. This is how you can guarantee it will be consumed!
Jasper: Lastly, for what about the upcoming show are you most excited?
Umoja: I’m most excited to hear what Love Peace & Hip Hop’s President, Fat Rat Da Czar aka Masta Splinta, has to say. I know it’s gonna be some great news!