In his astonishing Series entitled "By The River", the award winning Kenyan hyperrealist Eddy Ochieng, invites us to gaze into a hypothetical mirror of sorts, in which the facial expressions of common individuals are transfigured into myriads of universal emotions encompassing  joy, longing, loss and contentment.

Upon the surface of each canvas, the Wunderkind artist masterfully deploys a realm within which the viewer not only feels seen, but is summoned to pause long enough and ask: Who is this person? What have they endured? What memory do they carry within themselves? How does their experience relate to my own? Questions that beckon us to reconsider our inherent humanity and remind us that we have more in common than we imagine.

For Ochieng, art is a mirror that bridges time, cultures, and geography. His creative practice is both an antidote to our ever-shifting worlds and a celebration of our shared humanity, with each painting sparking empathy, whilst preserving the beauty that permeate our daily lives.