“AMEN” an art installation by Indianapolis artist Julian Jamaal Jones is opening at Wabash College’s Fine Arts Center on Jan. 24.
“AMEN” features a collection of Jones’ — Wabash College’s Artist-in-Residence for spring 2025 — work, including contemporary quilts and works on paper memorializing Black culture. The school is holding an opening reception for the installation from 4-7 p.m. in the Eric Dean Gallery, where guests can chat with the artist as they engage with his work.
“I best express myself through sketching,” Jones said in a statement. “My drawings are colorful, abstract, gestural and ultimately unexplainable. Even I can’t quite comprehend what comes out of my sketchbook. I approach the making of quilts as a sketching process, working quickly to creatively process the sense of alienation that comes from being a Black man in white spaces.”
“AMEN” explores Jones’ experience of an evolving faith rooted in the Black church, a communal space home to its own forms of Black expression and spirituality. Through abstract forms and vibrant colors, Jones’ memories and experiences are communicated through African American quilting tradition to “bypass preconceptions and open conversations around his Black experience,” according to a press release.
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The opening of “AMEN” directly follows Jones’ previous body of work, entitled “Take Me Back,” which opened in January 2024 and archived the artist’s nostalgia for 1990s Black church life. However, “AMEN” demonstrates maturation having taken place. While Jones’ childhood memories from this sacred space seen in his previous body of work remain, his work now shows an awakening, according to a press release.
Indianapolis-born and raised, Jones received his bachelor’s from the Herron School of Art + Design and a master’s from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
In 2024, Jones was selected for the Black Mountain Active Archive Residency and the year prior, he received the CICF Artist Travel Ambassador Grant. In 2022, Jones was named ArtsConnect “Artist to Watch” and received the 2022 Playground Emerging Artist fellowship, supported by the Knight Foundation, as well as the Museum Purchase Award from Cranbrook Art Museum.
Jones’ works are on view in the permanent textile collections of Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan as well as the Richmond Art Museum in Richmond, Indiana and The Book Tower in Detroit.
“AMEN” opening reception is from 4-7 p.m. on Jan. 24 in the Eric Dean Gallery at the Fine Arts Center at Wabash College, 301 W. Wabash Ave., Crawfordsville, Indiana. The installation will remain on view from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 2-6 p.m. on Saturday through April 12. The event is free and open to the public.
For more information, visit wabash.edu/academics/art/gallery/current.
Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.
Chloe McGowan is the Arts & Culture Reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Columbus, OH, Chloe graduated with a degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a former IndyStar Pulliam Fellow, and her previous work includes freelancing for Indy Maven, Assistant Arts & Life Editor for The Lantern, and editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Chloe enjoys covering all things arts and culture — from local music, visual art, dance, theater and film, as well as minority-owned businesses. In her free time, Chloe enjoys reading, cooking and keeping her plants alive.
