A Reflection of Life and the Struggles We

FaceA look inside the artwork and life of

Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Artist and Art Educator

About the Artist • Detroit-bred

• Studied drawing and painting at Jackson State University

• Illustration, then Art Education

• Now teaches elementary, middle, and high school students

• Currently lives in Silver Spring, MD with her family where she is earning her painting MFA at Howard University

Influences and Inspiration

• Gustav Klimt (arrangement of painting, use of color, pattern, and gold leaf)

• Kerry James Marshall (African American popular culture)

Compare/ContrastJamea Richmond Edwards, All The Pretty Roses

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Emelie Flöge

Compare/ContrastJamea Richmond-Edwards, Emerge From the Darkness

Kerry James Marshall, Lost Boys

Heart of the Artwork

• Subject matter solely women

• Based off of the complex lives of those women most close to her

Wings Not Meant to Fly

•Some of the media she uses:

• Acrylic

• ink

• graphite

• gold leaf

• rhinestones

• collaged paper

It Could Be a Sad Story

Honoring Artwork

• The women in her paintings-meant to represent her family and their struggles

• Life in the ghetto

• Family’s drug addictions

• Murder

Significance of the OwlA reference to Edwards’ aunt, who was murdered several years ago.

Owl imagery inspired by Medusa myth

“Medusa’s forces were symbolized by the female figure positioned in holy postures and gestures of empowerment,” explains Edwards.  Noticing that sometimes birds were nestled among the serpents that formed Medusa’s hair, Edwards began putting birds in her own subjects’ hair and exploring the archetype in relationship to the women’s stories in her paintings.”

(excerpt taken from an IRAAA article written about Edwards in

2013)

What we can

ultimately find in Edward’s

work:

A way to learn and process

human frailty and strength

A way to honor the

women she held most

dear