Harmonia Rosales
Harmonia Rosales (born 1984) is an Afro-Cuban American artist from Chicago.[1][2][3] She works mostly as a classical painter depicting women and people of color assuming roles of power and beauty in exquisite imaginings of ancient myths, Afro-Cuban culture, and Renaissance paintings. Her style is detailed renderings involving oil paint, raw linens, gold leaf, and wood panels. Since 2017, her work has used iron oxide to portray not only African soil but the decay in African history in America, a choice she intended to amplify the question “Why? Why have we accepted Eurocentric perceptions of beauty and historical narratives for so long?”
Harmonia Rosales | |
|---|---|
 Harmonia Rosales | |
| Born | February 6, 1984 Chicago U.S. |
| Known for | The Creation of God (2017 painting) |
| Style | Painting |
| Children | Madison Jackson, Mark Jackson |
| Parent(s) | Giraldo Rosales, Melodye Benson Rosales |
In 2017, Rosales posted an image, on social media, of her first completed work for her solo exhibition Black Imaginary To Counter Hegemony. This image was of The Creation of God, a piece of art that went viral. The painting is an oil-on-canvas piece that took two months to craft. In this painting, Rosales recreates Michelangelo’s Creazione di Adamo by displaying both God and Adam as Black women. Some have described The Creation of Adam as having indescribable beauty in showing Jehovah’s finger and the elegant, naked body of the first man. In contrast, the painting created by Rosales shows God as a black woman and creates the illusion of the heavens as a womb from which she is birthing Eve in an act of strength and empowerment. This piece received much backlash, with critics going as far as calling her work a “disgrace, disgusting and cultural appropriation.” However, Rosales was trying to demonstrate that “we have been taught that God created ‘man’ in his own image. [But] in fact, we have created God in our own image.” This is why she called this painting The Creation of God. This image was created to show that White subjects are the standard in classic art while challenging the viewer to consider why that practice is commonly accepted.
Personal life
Rosales was born on February 6th, 1984 in Chicago, Illinois to Cuban-born Giraldo Rosales and Jamaican-Jewish illustrator Melodye Benson Rosales (daughter of Ralph Bass and Winni Benson). As a young child, Rosales had an early interest in art, often painting underneath her mother’s art table and mimicking her every stroke of the brush. It wasn’t until her mother took her to The Art Institute of Chicago that she became fascinated by the old masters and their ability to story tell in one image.
“Yes, every artist story-tells in their work in various styles. But you must consider my age at the time. At 6 years old I couldn’t process the meanings behind Picassos or Georgia O’Keeffe’s beautiful work…It was the Dutch and old masters that truly captured my attention. The paintings were realistic but not photo realistic. It had a certain style that reminded you that you’re still an outsider looking in. I could sit for hours in front of those paintings. I knew I wanted to paint like that. To capture people’s attention, at all ages.” -Harmonia Rosales
Although Rosales continued to paint growing up, Rosales's parents wanted her to pursue a career in education, worrying that art was not going to be financially sustainable alone. Rosales has said her dream of becoming an artist faded as more and more people pushed the “Starving artist” narrative. That, combined with her father’s strong Cuban cultural influence of marriage and children, Rosales pushed her art dreams aside to focus on school and work. It was not until her divorce at 29 years old that she decided, against all odds, to pursue her art career. She stated: “Something big had to happen to me, like finding myself a single parent of two, in-order for me to snap out of it. I needed to be happy. Painting made me happy. This newfound self-empowerment influenced my art.’
Rosales's upbringing also influenced the specific themes of interest in her paintings. Her father, who is now retired from being the Dean of Minority Student Affairs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, often filled the house with his congo playing and his Lucumi upbringing. Rosales’s mother, a now retired children’s book author and illustrator, would incorporate her Jamaican roots to recreate popular children’s stories with people of color. Rosales’s mother was continually challenged by her skin color and light hair throughout her art career despite her West Indian mother.
Having both parents’ ancestries rooted along the West African coast, Rosales meticulously entwines her adversities and cultural background to challenge the viewers ideas about identity and empowerment in her art.
Public Collections
- Mount Holyoke College Art Museum South Hadley, MA
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture NW Washington, DC
Career
Early career
Rosales began her art career after her divorce in 2012. She started by painting simple classic portraits to anyone who wanted a commission. She then posted her finished pieces online. There she began to slowly build a following.
Rosales was so determined to make art a living, she picked up waitressing and odd jobs to support her and her children until she was 34. Rosales stated, “My motivation and goal during that time was to fulfill my daughters wish of having her own room. You see, me and my children were all sharing a single room and a bed. They were getting older, and it was getting crowded.”
In 2017, Rosales participated in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry: Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition and won 1st place. The painting was of her daughter and included all the elements of being over exposed and categorized at a young age. This award encouraged Rosales to move away from portraits and create a strong body of work.
Her first solo show, titled "Black Imaginary to Counter Hegemony," was installed at the Simard Bilodeau Contemporary in Los Angeles.[4][5]
Since 2017, Rosales has painted a little over 40 pieces of art.
Rosales usually develops these paintings by what she calls “Frankenstein-ing” various people she meets to create the subjects of her paintings. She mentally takes someone’s nose, another’s eyes and maybe her very own lips to create a face. She has said, “There is a part of me in every subject I create.”
Black Imaginary To Counter Hegemony
In 2017 Rosales was picked up by Simard-Bilodeau Contemporary, an art gallery based in LA and was given her first solo exhibition. Included in the show was Rosales's viral painting Creation of God which caused the show to be sold-out. One of her many works included The Birth of Oshun, an oil-on-canvas painting, which reimagines Sandro Botticelli’s work, Birth of Venus, by placing Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of fertility, sensuality, and prosperity, in a sea shell surrounded by black angels, in contrast to Botticelli’s painting where a White Venus, the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, is in a sea shell surrounded by white angels.[6] In this painting, Oshun has vitiligo that is made of gold patches that have roots in traditional Nigerian storytelling traditions.[7] The painting is meant to challenge the perceptions of beauty because as she says, “traditionally, we see Venus as this beautiful woman with flowing hair. My hair never flowed, so I’m wondering why this is supposed to be a painting of the most beautiful woman in the world.” This painting works to show the beauty in imperfection, such as the patches of Vitiligo, a skin condition.[8] She also says that she created this work with her daughter in mind in order to show her daughter that black women, and their natural hair, are beautiful.
References
- "Harmonia Rosales Biography – Harmonia Rosales on artnet". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
- Swartz, Tracy. "Chicago native finds fame by replacing white men in classic art with black women". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
- "This Artist Painted God as a Black Woman – And it's Gone Viral". Teen Vogue. 17 May 2017. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
- "Artists / Collections Harmonia Rosales : RJD Gallery". Retrieved 2019-03-10.
- Swartz, Tracy. "Chicago native finds fame by replacing white men in classic art with black women". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-03-10.
- Ruiz, Ada (2018-12-15). "Harmonia Rosales: Black Femininity in Classical Artworks - Los Angeles Art College | Fine Art | Concept Art | Degrees | Community Classes". Los Angeles Art College | Fine Art | Concept Art | Degrees | Community Classes. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
- Dazed (2018-09-05). "Harmonia Rosales repaints classic artworks to show God is a black woman". Dazed. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
- Kelley, Sonaiya (2017-09-21). "Words and Pictures: Viral artist Harmonia Rosales' first collection of paintings reimagines classic works with black femininity". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-06-06.