For more than a decade, an annual art show has worked to expand the creative network in a part of the city that doesn’t always get credit for its fine arts tradition.

“The East of the River Show is a celebration of all the brilliance — chilling and incubating and growing and becoming better — in wards 7 and 8,” says Jess Randolph, associate creative director of ARCH Development, which manages the Anacostia Arts Center.

This year’s exhibition opens on Saturday, June 12 with both online and in-person programming.

The show “is a great reminder of all of the great work, artists, and creatives that come from our part of town,” Randolph says. “For a very long time there’s been this negative view or discomfort with neighborhoods like ours in the city, for a lot of reasons. But I think that the show was created to really show the art in its context and environment instead of taking it across town to areas that are more predictably known for fine art.”

Previous iterations of the exhibition have had more of a general, open-call request for artists in the city’s most overlooked neighborhoods. But this year, the curators say they placed a specific emphasis on supporting and featuring art made by Black artists.

Put another way: “It’s going to be a Black-ass, beautiful extravaganza,” Randolph says.

The artists work in a range of mediums — from jewelry and sculpture to murals and paintings — all of which will be on display at the center from June 12 through July 24. More than a dozen artists will be featured.

The show’s opening reception, from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 12, will include an awards ceremony: ARCH Development is presenting Jay Coleman with the 2021 EOTR Distinguished Artist Award. A socially distanced, 40-person audience will attend the ceremony in person, and it will also be broadcast on the Anacostia Arts Center’s Facebook page.

Coleman, a portrait painter, muralist, and D.C.-native, attended Morehouse College before returning to the city to study at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. Coleman’s pieces include a bronze sculpture for Barry Farms Recreation Center, 15 bronze casts for the Howard Theatre Walk of Fame, and a portrait of Rosa Parks that hung at her memorial service.

The show will also open with new works from BK Adams, a sculpture artist and painter whose work features remixed versions of everyday items, like bikes and chairs. Adams’s expressionist, abstract work has been featured at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. But he’s perhaps best known as “Art Man,” whose image appears in posters taped to telephone poles, ladders, and walls across the region. In them, he’s seen wearing goggles and a French beret, with “I AM ART” plastered across the bottom.

“I’m into details. I’m into making a small detail big and living it big,” he says in a press release.

The Honfleur Gallery, located within the Anacostia Arts Center, will debut Adams’ latest show, outterman vs innerMAN. An opening reception will take place on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Other featured local artists include Deidra Bell, Diane English, Victoria Ford, Nicolette Gordon, Dwayne Martin, Luis Del Valle, Zalika Perkins, Elizabeth Stewart, Terence Sloan, and James Terrell.

“This exhibition is one that my husband and I have participated in, some way, for at least seven years,” says Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell, an artist and educator from Ward 7. “East of the River houses some of D.C.’s finest fine artists. I mean top-notch, contemporary, in-demand artists.”

Zoma Wallace, president of Black Artists DC, a non-profit organization and co-host of the show, says the curators not only focused on showcasing established artists, but also wanted to create a networking opportunity for emerging artists who attend. “They’re going to receive direct feedback from us, which is something that can help and enhance their career development,” she says.

For those who plan to attend, social distancing and masks are required.

East of the River Show, 6 p.m, June 12 – July 24; Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Rd SE; Admission is FREE, and guests can register online.

This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Luis Del Valle.