Hippo Artz

Hippo Artz is a self-taught Black visual artist based in Richmond, whose work exposes interior states through surrealism, distortion, color, and the Black female form. Working primarily in acrylic, she creates figures that fracture, dissolve, and transform, making internal experiences physically visible. Drawing from her interest in biology, pathology and the body, her work allows Black women to exist beyond narrow narratives of suffering or resilience: vulnerable, powerful, unsettled, tender, defiant and unresolved.

Color functions as an emotional language throughout her practic. In "The Borderlands of Hypnagogia" and

"Vertigocity", blue creates atmosphere, psychological distance and a space between consciousness and dreaming. Through saturated blues, teals, violets and deep shadows, Hippo Artz challenges the idea that darkness or blue must signify sadness, instead using color to hold tension, intimac, beauty, movement and transformation at once.

THE BORDERLANDS OF HYPNAGOGIA, 2025

16 x 20 in

Acrylic on canvas

$2,000