Faisal Abdu'Allah


Faisal Abdu'Allah is a British artist and barber. His work includes photography, screenprint and installations.

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. In 1991, Abdu'Allah reverted to Islam and changed his name. The event was described in the BBC television documentary series The Day That Changed My Life, and formed the subject of the artist's 1992 work Thalatha Haqq . He taught at the University of East London, formerly North East London Polytechnic. He was a visiting Professor at Stanford University and is a member of the Association of Black Photographers. 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. He is now an associate professor of art and in 2017, received one of UW–Madison's Romnes Faculty Fellowships.