Sarah Weaver, Fahamu Pecou & Mr. Brainwash all live in three very different parts of America and create very different types of art, but they have one thing in common. These artists are to our generation what Andy Warhol was to his.

TODAY’S ICONS: SARAH WEAVER
When it came time to complete her M.F.A. thesis Santa Cruz based artist and then MFA candidate at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Sarah Weaver decided to explore iconography as most pop art is about symbols and why they’re important to us.

Sarah re imagined the standing of pop culture staples and often beautifully rendered the figure in a surrealist and sarcastic view. Paris Hilton is painted as a mannequin posed like Venus the Goddess of Love emerging from the foamy sea, Britney Spears is painted as an out of it ragged doll at the footsteps of the MTV Video Music Awards, Dr. Phil is painted in a straight jacket. It’s obvious Sarah has something heavy to say about our popular culture and she isn’t censoring her paintbrush.

THAT’S MY SHIT: FAHAMU PECOU
As a full-time painter and owner of gallery Fahamu Pecou has his hands in art daily. From his gallery in the uber arts district of Atlanta Castelberry Hill, Pecou tells me “everything is already pop, or it’s trying to be pop.”

“Growing up in this society I was affected by all things pop, not just pop art,” he later explains. “A lot of my ‘NEO-POP’ work kinda came from the way media and technology really influences popular culture.”

Like Sarah Weaver, Fahamu is at the forefront of the neo-pop art movement. The painter titled a previous series of work “NEO-POP“ and admits the influence of pop art on him. This well known series does what pop art does best, comment on social issues with light, and likeable images. His issue, the view of black men in society, his likeable image, none of other than the glossy magazines. Fahamu painted himself, on magazines like Interview and Art Papers, where black faces and ironically art by black artists is rarely seen.

One of Fahamu’s first introductions to painting was through pop art. At the time he was painting cartoon characters he created on the covers of magazines. He didn’t take the work serious until a professor dubbed the work “Neo-Pop.”

“He started showing me Roy Lichtenstein and [Andy] Warhol,“ Fahamu explains. “That was my formal introduction really into painting. I felt like a lot could be said with the medium of pop.“

BRAINWASHED
I had to go to New York City to get a taste of  what the art scene in Los Angeles has to offer. L.A. based French street artist, Mr. Brainwash’s first solo show entitled Icon was filled with his Andy Warholesque pop portraits of fashion, music, art & business icons, prints, and large scale sculptures of taxis, paint buckets, and spray paint cans. Mr. Brainwash immortalized already iconic models (Kate Moss, Twiggy), fashion designers (Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld), pop stars (Madonna, Diddy), and politicians (Barack Obama).

The entire space was used as the artist’s playground. I love when galleries let an artist do more than simply hang pieces on the walls. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Brainwash, he’s the artist that recently worked on Madonna’s CD packaging for her latest album Celebration. He had multiple prints of the piece he created for that album sprawled over the entire show.

This article was first featured in Art Nouveau’s Summer 2010 issue “Super Pop.” Click here to view the issue.