The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College will present "Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same" from September 13, 2025, to June 14, 2026. Curated by Alexander Jarman, the exhibition features a large body of newly created work alongside mixed-media paintings from the past seven years, exploring race, class, and identity. Richmond-Edwards draws on her Detroit roots, incorporating music genres like jazz, soul, Motown, techno, and hip hop, as well as imagery from school marching bands. The title references a 17th-century dystopian novel by Joseph Hall, and the artist adapts its narrative through a fictional character, Iceberg, who leads a voyage to Antarctica to establish an egalitarian society, addressing themes of climate change and self-determination.
This exhibition matters because it showcases a major new body of work by a rising interdisciplinary artist whose practice engages pressing social and environmental issues through a distinctly personal lens. Richmond-Edwards’s inclusion of materials like marker, construction paper, collage, and soft sculpture, combined with her monumental scale, pushes the boundaries of contemporary painting. The show also highlights the Wellin Museum’s commitment to presenting innovative, socially relevant art within an academic context, and it positions Richmond-Edwards as a significant voice in conversations about race, identity, and utopian thinking in art.