* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Fahamu Pecou is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar whose works combine observations on hip-hop, fine art and popular culture. Pecou’s paintings, performance art, and academic work addresses concerns around contemporary representations of Black masculinity and how these images impact both the reading and performance of Black masculinity.
Currently a Ph.D. candidate in Emory University’s Institute of Liberal Arts (ILA), Pecou maintains an active exhibition schedule as well as public lectures and speaking engagements at colleges and museums nationwide.
Pecou is a recipient of the 2016 Joan Mitchell Foundation “Painters and Sculptors” Award. His work is featured in noted private and public national and international collections including; Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, Societe Generale (Paris), Nasher Museum at Duke University, The High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Paul R. Jones Collection, Clark Atlanta University Art Collection and Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.
Fahamu's work can regularly be seen in the set of television shows "Black-ish" and "Empire"
"I love how Fahamu Pecou skewers the notion of art celebrity. We're used to seeing our favorite rappers posturing on the front of magazine covers with their shirts off, but we rarely think of artists like that. In his self portraits, Pecou has cast himself in the role of Kanye or Diddy, only if mainstream black culture were as invested in painting as it is in hip hop. It’s often hard to tell if his work is straight up satire or unabashed bravado (probably a fair bit of both), but either way they’re great paintings. If Basquiat was Run DMC doing “Walk This Way,” Fahamu Pecou is “Watch the Throne.”"
"The first pieces I saw of Fahamu Pecou’s were poignant. He has a way of narrowing your focus through icon, through curation of the space in his paintings, and through pointed symbols. His works bring both celebration of identity and exploration of what constitutes it in a way that is accessible to the viewer and genuinely beautiful. "
