Foregrounding Jamea Richmond-Edwards’s interdisciplinary practice, Another World and Yet the Same features a significant body of newly created works alongside a selection of mixed-media paintings from the last seven years that examine issues of race, class, and identity. Curated by Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, the exhibition reflects both the expansiveness of Richmond-Edwards’s vision and the museum’s commitment to connecting contemporary art with critical dialogue across disciplines.

Themes close to the artist’s heart, notably her hometown of Detroit and its deep musical legacy, from jazz and soul to Motown, techno, and hip hop, run throughout the exhibition. These influences infuse her practice with rhythm, improvisation, and emotional resonance. The subjects of her portraits — typically herself, family, and friends — are adorned in elaborate, colorful attire and set against equally intricate backdrops. Materials such as marker, construction paper, collage, and soft sculpture add physical dimension to her canvases, while the influence of marching-band regalia, music, and movement recalls the artist’s personal history as a French horn player in ensembles throughout her formative and college years. Collectively, these elements result in vibrant, textured compositions that reflect not only individual style but also the communal spirit and creative energy of Detroit.

In this exhibition, Richmond-Edwards debuts a series of new works that push her narrative beyond the boundaries of the known world. The title Another World and Yet the Same is borrowed from the seventeenth-century satirical novel Mundus alter et idem (c. 1605) by Joseph Hall. In Hall’s text, a fictional voyage to the oceans south of Africa serves as a critique of English power structures; Richmond-Edwards reimagines this premise through a distinctly contemporary lens. Her protagonist, Iceberg, invites family and friends to embark on an oceanic journey to Antarctica to establish a new, egalitarian society. Through this reconfigured narrative, Richmond-Edwards explores the challenges of utopia-making, environmental precarity, and the pursuit of freedom and equity, a reflection of both historical and modern struggles for self-determination.

Jarman’s curatorial framing emphasizes the artist’s ability to merge mythology, autobiography, and social critique into a cohesive vision. The exhibition situates Richmond-Edwards’s practice within a continuum of Black creative expression that embraces the fantastical as a mode of truth-telling. The works, with their monumental scale and layered symbolism, invite viewers to consider the duality of the title — how imagination can mirror reality, and how creation can serve as both reflection and resistance.

To hear more from the curator about the development of the exhibition and the collaborative process behind it, watch In the Studio with Alexander Jarman, available now on the Wellin Museum’s YouTube channel.

Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same is on view at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art through June 14, 2026.