1970s- Onli founded the Black Arts Guild in 1970 as a creative think-tank for young gifted dedicated visual artist to facilitate their transition from talented but frustrated Art Students into life-long professionals. Bringing the idea and esthetics of the Black Cultural Revolution to commercial applications was its covert agenda. Getting paid mattered!  

With B.A.G. Onli directed and participated in various traveling themed group exhibitions starting in 1970 until 1976. B.A.G. used the watermelon as its logo and each member produced watermelon infused artwork as part of its secretive initiation process.  

"OM" Created in 1971 when Alice Coltrane was Onli's spiritual advisor.

 Pen & Ink on archival illustration board. Approximately 22: X 28".

 B.A.G. was decommissioned in 1978 when Onli was focused on working in Paris, France.

1974- One of Onil's Rhythmistic paintings from his collection celebrating the glory & power of Black Women was accepted in the landmark juried group exhibition in Berkeley California at the Rainbow Sign Gallery.

Playboy Magazine hired Onli to illustrate for the "Reviews Section" of its trendy "OUI" Magazine. This exposed thousands of readers on an international scale to his Rhythmistic treatments and he used this to further his thesis of Rhythmism and its capacity to communicate. illustrate and be commercialized.

Onli continued to grow his watermelon themed body of Rhythmistic art.  He calls this collection "Passion Fruit". It was during his tenure directing B.A.G. that Onli and Dalton Brown started using the term "Rhythmism".  Onli later refined the term to be about the Future-Primitif processing of concepts.

1975- Onli created this full-spread album cover illustration for the legendary innovative jazz musician, Miles Davis.  Though Davis loved this Rhythmistic portrait he & Onli could not reach business terms about its use.  Onli refused Davis' offer of sub-par payment. Thus, this Rhythmistic cover treatment was never used. 

1977- Onli went to live, work and study in Paris France. Wanting to challenge his Rhythmistic thesis on the international level, he called this his Cosmopolitan Phase.  He worked for the Paris Metro Magazine and MODE Avante Garde Magazine along with winning a national drawing competition that led to his having a solo exhibition at the FIAP in Paris. Here he presented his first Rhythmistic exhibition.  It was called, "Presenting My Rhythm".  During the summer of 1978 thousands of tourists and Parisiens visited this showcase. 

 It was here that Onli was convinced of the validity of Rhythmism as a Future-Primitif genre in the visual arts canon.

During this period of Onil's career, he was often criticized and marginalized in "The Black Art Movement" and even called a sell-out for doing commercial illustrations and wanting to establish a genre that went beyond the limited orthodoxy of the term, "Black Art". 

 Then in non-Black mainstream circles he was often the only or first Black to enter those offices with a skill set and level of professionalism to secure and complete actual commissions.  He often was black balled, harassed and even escorted out of offices. 

The Art Establishment frequently stated that its tradition was set.  Firmly put, no visual Artiste could determine or name a genre in the Visual Arts. That only a connected art critic or art historian could do so.

However, Onli's published and exhibited works speak for themselves and his dedication.

 "Rhythmism Lives!!!"

 

Prof. Onli, the creator of "NOG: The Nubian of Greatness, Protector of the Pyramides", is so inspired by the rite of passage that was having NOG featured in the 2021 blockbuster group exhibition at the Musuem of Contemporary Art, Chicago, curated by Dan Nadel, that he is now back in the 1980s- Zone when NOG was first published. 

(Rhythmistic visual artist, educator & publisher Onli is a rare visual artist who has been innovative and practicing across the divide of two centuries.)

Onli Summer of 2022 in his studio.

Onli is looking at that first publication as source material to produce a totally new body of Rhythmistic Fine Art based on the original designs and unpublished concepts related to this landmark character and book.  These will be oil and acrylic paintings completed on archival wood panels. linen and canvases.

This emerging Rhythmistic fine art collection will be offered to major museums that have declared their programming to embrace the positives of real diversity beyond the limits of tokenism. This will present them with the opportunity to showcase and collect serious works by unique dedicated and proven visual artists from various backgrounds and initiators of expansive styles such as the proven Rhythmistic Future-Primitif genre.

These and all posted original artworks and illustrations are Copyright 2022 and other dates to Turtel Onli.  None are to be remixed. rebooted or published for commercial purposes without written agreement with Turtel Onli, the sole copyright holder.

 "Dear fans, scholars, collectors, students, gallerists, composers, musicians, artists, writers, illustrators, animators, investor, critics, curators and more.  It's the first week of 2022 and I want to seriously thank all of you for the fantastic year we and ONLI STUDIOS LLC along with all things Rhythmistic experienced.  First, we rebranded & rebooted our decades long, original open-sourced welcoming Black Age of Comics, Convention, Chicago into the virtual "BLACK SANKOFA".

We were featured in the historic book/anthology called "It's Life As I See It!".  This book showcased the critical inspiring works of several highly valued Chicago Black Cartoonists.  The entire first edition of our Rhythmistic character "NOG: The Nubian of Greatness. Protector of the Pyramides' appears in this uniquely intelligent book. 

Followed by NOG, circa 1980, being featured along with innovative issues of the 1980s classic 'zine, "Future-Funk" in the blockbuster, group exhibition at the Musuem of Contemporary Art, Chicago, "Chicago Comics: 1960 until Now!". 

This awesome ever-cool book and exhibition were the amazing industrious inspired work of curator / writer, Dan Nadel. 

 Plus, the solo retrospective styled exhibition, "RHYTHMISM: Art as Social Change Making" ran for several months at the stately Gordon Parks Arts Hall in the Corvus Gallery on the campus of the prestigious University of Chicago.  Lastly ONLI STUDIOS LLC published its first hyper-dynamic Graphic Novel, "Drawn For The Rhythmic Zone".

In appreciation as gratitude because none of this happens without your positive participation, sharing and sharing of all things Rhythmistic. 

Now we are planning for "BLACK SANKIFA 2.0" and more in the coming year. "

Be well and Stay Smart!

Soild!

Prof. Turtel Onli, M.A.A.T.

This drawing was lost in Paris Circa 1980.

 Prof. Onli drew this 3ft X 6ft Rhythmistic, grease-pencil on brown kraft paper, treatment in 1975.  It was part of a total body of oversized drawings that he would offer in exhibitions in non-profit locations such as the South Side Community Art Center or the Afam Art Gallery in Chicago. 

Onli was never accepted or handled by commercially established art galleries or art dealers. 

This drawing and this entire collection was "lost" in Paris during an unfortunate stressful exchange there while Onli was doing his Rhythmistic Future-Primitif thing there in the late 1970s. That was a crushing blow to Onli at that time when he was taking on the international Fine Art and Illustration worlds with his powerfully intelligent Rhythmistic ideas and practices. 

The negative resistance was unrelenting. Yet Onli succeeded. "Rhythmism Lives!"