Atlanta artist and educator Fahamu Pecou stars in new solo show at Johnson Lowe Gallery
Artist, art scholar and educator Dr. Fahamu Pecou is leading a new discourse in Atlanta on Black and brown identity through the lens of “Afrotropes,” the recurring iconography of Black aesthetics, codes and concepts.
A new solo exhibition of work by Dr. Pecou, the first in 11 years, is titled “They We Didn’t Realize We Were Seeds: We the Roses,” and it gathers paintings, drawings and sculpture that “create encounters with everyday objects,” recontextualized.
Dr. Pecou joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes to discuss the exhibition, on view at Johnson Lowe Gallery through Nov. 23.
“‘Afrotropes’ is a really beautiful nomenclature for a concept that I’ve been working with for a while,” says Dr. Pecou about the guiding principle behind his newest solo exhibition.
Much of history works in a similar sort of circular fashion, but art historians Krista Thompson and Huey Copeland noticed that Black history, in particular, tends to borrow heavily from itself in an extremely self-referential way. Their coining of the term “afro tropes” began a new chapter in America’s rich tapestry of conversation about Black identities.
The concept has stuck with Pecou as he examines and begins new discourse about Black identities in America.
“We will certainly be drawn to the kind of nostalgia of what that has meant to us at some point, but also be excited about how it’s been reinvented or represented in a new form,” he said. “Sampling in hip-hop is a really great articulation of the ‘Afrotrope,’ right? So you might take something like an old jazz or blues riff, and sample it with new drum patterns… and then you create a whole new composition for this thing.”
Fahamu Pecou’s solo exhibition can be found at the Johnson Lowe Gallery’s website.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Fahamu Pecou’s first name. This has been corrected.
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