Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College presents Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same

The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, in Clinton , NY, presents the exhibition, Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same from September 13, 2025,through June 14, 2026, showcasing the artist’s interdisciplinary work in video, collage, and painting. This exhibition includes existing works alongside a newly created video and suite of paintings. Points of inspiration in this body of work include the biblical stories of Exodus, the science-fiction mythology of jazz musician Sun Ra, the exploration of terrestrial continents both real and imagined, and the impending effects of climate change upon our planet’s most vulnerable geographies.

Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Two Sisters and the Horned Serpent (detail), 2019. Acrylic, ink, glitter, graphite, rhinestones, spray paint, and mixed media collage on canvas. Clinton, NY—The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College presents the exhibition 96 x 72 in. (243.8 × 182.8 cm) Bill and Christy Gautreaux Collection, Kansas City, MO. © Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Image courtesy of Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY. Photo by Jack Ramsdale.

For the past decade, much of Richmond-Edwards’s work has foregrounded the communities and cultural signifiers of her hometown of Detroit, and has served as a means of processing and contextualizing her own life’s journey and as a meditation on larger social and environmental concerns. Most recently, her wide-ranging research interests—which span religion, history, mythology, and ancestry have informed 2monumental paintings that offer complex narratives addressing humanity’s shared histories while also exploring social constructions of race, class,and nationalism.

The exhibition’s title is borrowed from the seventeenth-century dystopian literary work of the same name, Mundus alter et idem, an imaginary account of a voyage to the oceans south of Africa written by Joseph Hall (1574–1656) as a satirical indictment of the power structures of early modern British culture.

In Richmond-Edwards’s new works, the artist adapts this narrative to focus on a fictive character of her own making, Iceberg, who appeals to his own family members and close friends to embark upon an oceanic caravan to Antarctica, where a new, egalitarian society might be established. This fictionalization presents the inherent challenges for a utopian state located on a rapidly shrinking continent and mirrors the contemporary crises of nations that are either under threat from rising sea levels or are exploring the promises and pitfalls of self-determination and independence.

Explains the Wellin Museum’s Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach, “This exhibition will mark an important evolution in the artist’s practice. While Richmond-Edwards has created large-scale paintings previously, this is the first time a new body of work will coalesce around a central narrative of the artist’s own invention. Many of these works are directly informed by the research she has specifically undertaken drawing upon Hamilton College archives and collections, but some of the issues and themes she is addressing—climate change, democracy, mythology, and race—are relevant to communities throughout the US and around the world. We are proud to have helped fuel this next chapter of Richmond-Edwards’s artistic evolution and look forward to the conversations it will engender with audiences.”Richmond-Edwards adds, “I am excited to present this new body of work and the story it tells, which I am thinking of as an epic.It’s about a young guy named Iceberg who is leading his family to Antarctica. It’s a whole narrative.At a time when it feels like our climate is disintegrating and our politics are creating deeper divisions, I can build a new vision for the world in this exhibition. I believe that humanity’s future rests not only in the hands of politicians or scientists, but also in the ability of artists to imagine alternate futures. We are all an integral part of finding solutions for the uncertain times ahead and I hope these new works energize and inspire viewers.”

Organization

Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same is curated by Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach.

About the Artist

Jamea Richmond-Edwards (b. 1982, Detroit) earned a BA from Jackson State University (2004) and an MFA from Howard University (2012). Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, California African American Museum (Los Angeles), Charles Wright Museum (Detroit), Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington), Frist Art Museum (Nashville), Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Phillips Collection (Washington, DC). She is a 2018 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and her works are included in the collections of the Rubell Family Collection, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the US Department of State’s Art in Embassies program.

Programming

Friday, September 12, 2025 at 1 p.m. via Facebook Live, The artist will offer a virtual walkthrough of the exhibition with Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach.

Saturday, September 13, 2025, 3 p.m.
The artist and members of the Delusions of Grandeur collective will be in conversation with Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach.

Saturday, September 13, from 4 to 6 p.m.
Join the artist for an opening reception for the exhibition.

Week of October 6, 2025
The artist will visit Hamilton College’s campus to engage in class visits, public programs, workshops, and studio critiques.

Support

The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art’s programs are made possible, in part, with funds from the Daniel W. Dietrich ’64 Arts Museum Programming Fund; the Johnson-Pote Museum Director Fund; the John B. Root ’44 Exhibition Fund; the Edward W. and Grace C. Root Endowment Fund; and the William G. Roehrick ’34 Lecture Fund.

About the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art

A teaching museum on the campus of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, the Wellin invites visitors to discover the arts and form unexpected connections through groundbreaking exhibitions, a globally representative collection, and engaging high-touch programming. Artists whose work has been featured in solo exhibitions include Jeffrey Gibson, Yun-Fei Ji, Sarah Oppenheimer, Michael Rakowitz, Elias Sime, and Renée Stout. Through its exhibitions, public programs, and educational outreach, the Wellin Museum sparks dialogues across disciplines, inspires experimentation, and fosters creative inquiry. The Wellin Museum opened in 2012 with Tracy L. Adler as its founding director. The innovative facility was designed by Machado Silvetti Associates and features a 27-foot-high visible archive, a large exhibition gallery, and other amenities that foster common exchange and learning. Positioned as part of a newly developed arts quad that includes the sprawling Kennedy Center for Theatre and Studio Arts, which opened in 2014, and the Molly Root House, a restored McKim, Mead & White building housing the art history department, the Wellin provides a gateway to the arts and acts as an incubator for interdisciplinary learning for Hamilton students and faculty, and a resource for the
community. These facilities marked a major leap forward for Hamilton and ushered in a new era with a dedication to the arts at its core. https://www.hamilton.edu/wellin