Anji Richards London, United Kingdom
I am a Black British Female Artist based in London. I am a portraitist primarily but, not exclusively. I use various media, including oil, acrylic, inks, pigments and collage. The use of line drawing has always been a strong presence in my work.
My current work explores Afrofuturist ideas, figurative abstraction and abstraction, to focus on black identity and examine positive and negative preconceptions and ideas about race. Looking at black representation, specifically in the fields of arts and media, beauty, fashion, culture, subculture and class. I am interested in the labels that get attached to individuals and groups, and have begun using labels to accompany the images in some of my work. Aspects of my Jamaican heritage also filter into my work. With my artistic roots in fashion illustration influencing my mark making, which is gestural and loose, I aim to create a fluidity and freshness in my paintings and drawings. Looking at ideas such as vulnerability, pride, culture, heritage and class and those that also concern power, politics, emotions, fashion, costume, home and family. I use cultural and historical references and imagery, to inform the present, channeling those ideas into the final piece, which is essentially about the modern black British experience.
