(they/them)
email: river.smith.studio@gmail.com
@toasted.fishes
River, (b.1993) is a Manchester-based artist working across sculpture, installation, drawing, and performance. A 2024 graduate of the Manchester School of Art MA program, their practice explores trauma, memory, and emotional inheritance through manipulated everyday objects. Familiar forms, often linked to childhood or care, are rendered dysfunctional or uncanny through shifts in scale, material, or form. These dissonances expose the invisible scripts we inherit around safety, shame, and protection.
Rooted in personal experiences and scientific research, River’s work moves beyond individual narrative into a larger inquiry: How do cycles of harm perpetuate across generations? How do we interrupt them? What systems allow them to exist? Rather than apportion blame, the work seeks to expose the deeper, often invisible forces that fracture human care and connection. Ultimately, River’s practice invites audiences into a space where surrender becomes strength. A space where discomfort, vulnerability, and tenderness coexist, creating the conditions for recognition, resilience, and radical empathy.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025 Hold My Hand, (Solo Show) Prisma Studio, Lisbon, Portugal
Hadrian’s Wall Art Trail, Field Shelter Gallery, Hadrians Wall, UK
Residency Showcase August + September, Prisma Studio, Lisbon, Portugal
Protest & Pride - Art as Resistance, The Mill Gallery, Leeds, UK
Soft Territories, Pup and Tiger, Canterbury, UK
Artivist, Gallery Grounds, Southhampton, UK
2024 I See You, Levenshulme Old Library, Manchester, UK
Emerging Artists, Art Collide, Digital Exhibition
Manchester School of Art MA show, The Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK
Open Studios, 70 Oxford Road, Manchester, UK
Manchester Open, Home Gallery, Manchester, UK
2023 Punk/Jazz, Micklegate Social, York, UK
2018 Traces, Kensington, Calgary, Canada
2017 Tertium Quid, House on the Hill, New York, USA
A September Exhibition, The Mill, New York, USA
2016 Liverpool School of Art Degree Show, John Lennon Building, Liverpool, UK
6 maybe 9, John Lennon Building, Liverpool, UK
B4*, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, UK
2015 Lost, John Lennon Building, Liverpool, UK
Wrapped, Bombed out church, Liverpool, UK
2014 Amerge, Arch Collective Gallery, London, UK
Destination, CFA, Portsmouth, UK
2013 Temporary, CFA, Portsmouth, UK
EDUCATION
MA Fine Art, Manchester School of Art, Manchester, UK, 2023 – 2024
BA (Hons) Fine Art ; Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool, UK 2013-2016
AWARDS AND GRANTS
2025 The Eaton Fund Grant
2024 Art Collide Emerging Artists’ Award, Finalist
2010 Hilary Parker award for Art
RESIDENCIES
2026 Artist-in-Residence, La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires, Argentina (upcoming)
2025 Artist-in-Residence, Prisma, Lisbon, Portugal
2017 Artist-in-Residence, Arts Letters & Numbers Institute, New York, USA
‘A Third Thing’ Residency, Arts Letters & Numbers Institute, New York, USA
PRESS
Archives in Absence, https://archivesinabsence.weebly.com/river-smith.html, 2025 (online)
101 Contemporary Artists, 7th Edition, Collect Artwork, 2024 (book)
Summer Issue, Vol. 47, Collect Artwork, 2024 (online + print)
Changing the discourse, Zine, Haus a Rest, 2024 (online + print)
Average art magazine 2017 (print)
COLLECTIVES
2024- Cakebread Workshop, Manchester, UK.
2018 Sensitif, Calgary, Canada
2013 Amerge, London, UK
