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Hope River, b. 1994, is an emerging Black British painter and writer. Her artistic vision blends the real and surreal to express the Black experience.
River’s work challenges and reinterprets black stereotypes and depictions, to highlight that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, a world filled with new narratives and origin stories that corrects the lack of representation of Black people. The underpinning concepts and themes in her practice include Afrosurrealism, Expressionism, and Black Horror. River’s motivation comes from her yearning to transcend the perceived limitations of race-conscious art, and to establish the genre of Afrosurrealism in the Western Art canon.
River studied Fine Art at Leeds Arts University (HND, 2014), The HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (Ba Hons, 2017). She lives and works in South London.
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