Fahamu Pecou: God Snapped When She Made Water and Black Women

Fahamu Pecou: God Snapped When She Made Water and Black Women

 

Exhibition Dates: May 2 – June 27, 2026

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 2, 6:00–8:00 PM

Gallery Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm

Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com

 

The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present God Snapped When She Made Water and Black Women, an exhibition of new works by Fahamu Pecou. The exhibition will be on view from May 2 through June 27, 2026, with an opening reception on Saturday, May 2, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

 

In this recent body of work, Pecou expands his ongoing exploration of Blackness by positioning Black women as central figures within a broader cosmology. Drawing from mythology and contemporary culture, the works—ranging from monumental paintings to intricate sculptural objects—reframe Black femininity as a site of reflection and cultural continuity. As Pecou notes, “I decided to challenge myself… to think more broadly about our ideas of Black identity… and use my work as a way to expand the narratives”.

The exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, and sculptural objects that incorporate materials such as gold leaf, hair, chains, and found elements. These materials function not only as formal devices but also as signifiers, referencing adornment, status, ritual, and the layered histories embedded in representations of Black bodies. Across the works, Pecou combines figuration with symbolic patterning and text, creating compositions that are both direct and referential.

 

Recurring motifs—including crowns, water, cowrie shells, and objects of personal and cultural significance—establish a visual language that connects the individual works while allowing each to operate as a distinct meditation on identity and presence. In several pieces, sculptural elements such as gold chains extend beyond the picture plane, reinforcing the physicality of the work and its engagement with the body.

 

God Snapped When She Made Water and Black Women builds on Pecou’s established practice while marking a shift in emphasis toward representations of Black women as sites of power, reflection, and cultural continuity. The exhibition invites viewers to consider how beauty, mythology, and identity are constructed, performed, and reclaimed.

 

About Fahamu Pecou 

Dr. Fahamu Pecou, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, received his BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1997 and his MA and PhD from Emory University in 2017 and 2018, respectively. His work is exhibited internationally, and he is a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities.

 

An educator and cultural leader, Dr. Pecou is the founder and executive director of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA) and the creator of (ad)Vantage Point, a narrative-based arts curriculum focused on Black male youth.

 

Pecou’s work is held in prominent public and private collections worldwide, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Société Générale (Paris), the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, The High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Paul R. Jones Collection, Roc Nation, Clark Atlanta University Art Collection, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.

He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the 2022 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, the 2016 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Award, and the 2020 South Arts Prize (Georgia). In 2020, he was selected as one of six artists for Emory University’s inaugural Arts & Social Justice Fellowship. In 2017, he was the subject of the retrospective exhibition Miroirs de l’Homme in Paris.

 

Pecou’s work has also appeared in film and television, including HBO’s Between the World and Me, Black-ish, and The Chi, and in publications such as Atlanta Magazine, Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Fortune for Your Disaster, and Rion Amilcar Scott’s The World Doesn’t Require You.

For more information, please contact the Arthur Roger Gallery at 504.522.1999 or visit our website at arthurrogergallery.com.