Born in Brooklyn, New York
Lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in
painting and digital art from the Atlanta College of Art in 1997, Fahamu Pecou became a Ph.D. student at the Emory
University’s Institute of Liberal Arts in Atlanta in 2012. Strongly inspired by the complexities
of marketing, Fahamu Pecou has painted himself on the covers of famous
magazines such as George, Art Review or Art Newspaper, questioning the identity constructs he conveys
before turning them on their heads. In an affirmation of his “negritude” or
“blackness” defined in popular culture by “authentic” images linked to the body
and appearance, Pecou often paints himself on the cover of invented magazines
or during photo shoots, defining himself as artist and master of his own
destiny and dismantling the constructions and interpretations imposed by mass
culture. He has won the ARTADIA Award (The Fund for Art and Dialogue) and the
Emerging Artist Award of the National Black Arts Festival (Atlanta).
