Cypress College Art Gallery Speaker Series Presents

Fahamu Pecou

6:00 PM: Thursday, October 20, 2022

Atlanta-based artist Dr. Fahamu Pecou overlays social commentary and hip hop culture onto the world of contemporary art. His paintings and drawings depict Pecou on fictionalized magazine covers and in staged photo shoots. His paintings, performance art, and scholarly work addresses concerns around representations of black masculinity in popular culture and how these images impact both black male masculinity and identity.

Dr. Fahamu Pecou is an Atlanta-based artist and scholar who works on an international stage. He received a B.F.A. from the Atlanta College of Art in 1997 and a Ph.D. from Emory University in 2018. Pecou's paintings, photographs, performances, and multimedia installations explore and challenge representations of Black identity and experience. His work crosses boundaries, moving easily between academia, fine art, and popular culture. Pecou is profoundly committed to the principle that art can make social change, and to a practice that works towards doing so. 

In 2020 Dr. Pecou was one of six artists selected for Emory University's Arts & Social Justice Fellowship, which paired Atlanta artists with faculty members across campus to explore the vital role of creative expression in motivating social change. That same year he was selected as a South Arts State Fellowship recipient. Pecou's work is featured in noted private and public national and international collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, the High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Collection d’Art Société Générale (Paris), as well as in public commissions like We Can't Cop Cars Without Seeing Cop Cars on the Atlanta Beltline.

Pecou is the founding Director of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA), and exhibits and speaks internationally. This year he is acting as a guest curator for both the Congo Bienniale in Kinshasa, DRC, and for the Montresso Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco.

Pecou's 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.

Visit the artist’s website: https://www.fahamupecouart.com