Faisal_Abdu'allah

Faisal Abdu'Allah

Faisal Abdu'Allah

British artist and barber (born 1969)


Faisal Abdu'Allah (born 1969 in London) is a British artist and barber.[1] His work includes photography, screenprint and installations.

Quick Facts Born, Nationality ...

Life and work

Abdu'Allah was born Paul Duffus in 1969 and grew up in a Pentecostal family. He was educated at Willesden High School, Harrow School of Art, Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art.[2]

In 1991, Abdu'Allah converted to Islam and changed his name. The event was described in the BBC television documentary series The Day That Changed My Life,[3] and formed the subject of the artist's 1992 work Thalatha Haqq (Three Truths).[4] He taught at the University of East London (UEL),[5] formerly North East London Polytechnic. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University[6] and is a member of the Association of Black Photographers.[7]

In the spring of 2013, Abdu'Allah was an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts Institute, and in the fall of 2014 he returned to Wisconsin, this time as an assistant professor in the Art Department of the School of Education.[8] He is now an associate professor of art and in 2017, received one of UW–Madison's Romnes Faculty Fellowships.[9]

In his work The Last Supper, eleven men and women sit in Islamic costume around a table, while a figure corresponding to Judas Iscariot stands, concealing a gun behind his back. Silent Witness featured portraits of young black men, with a soundtrack mixing rap, prayer and interviews.[10]

Group exhibitions


References

  1. Jo Littler and Roshi Naidoop, The Politics of Heritage: Legacies of Race, Routledge, p. 178. ISBN 978-0-415-32210-2.
  2. Michael Edmands, Artist who is a cut above, The Guardian, 30 June 2001.
  3. Thomas Sutcliffe, Review, The Independent, 24 August 1995.
  4. "Faisal Abdu'Allah: The Art of Dislocation". Stanford University. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
  5. Elizabeth M. Hallam and Brian V. Street, Cultural Encounters: representing otherness, Routledge, p. 273. ISBN 978-0-415-20279-4.
  6. "School of Education welcoming new cohort of faculty members for 2014–15". University of Wisconsin-Madison. 27 August 2014. Archived from the original on 10 September 2019. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
  7. Kassulke, Natasha (16 March 2017). "Abdu'Allah among 11 UW-Madison professors to receive Romnes Faculty Fellowships". University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  8. Ratnam, Niru (2002). "Abdu'Allah, Faisal". In Alison Donnell (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. pp. 2–3. ISBN 978-1-134-70025-7.
  9. Recordings: A Select Bibliography of Contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British Art. UK: Institute of International Visual Arts and Chelsea College of Art and Design. 1996. pp. 41–44, 49. ISBN 1899846-06-9.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Faisal_Abdu'allah, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.