{"id":9705,"date":"2023-05-10T18:26:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T18:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/?p=9705"},"modified":"2023-07-14T01:42:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T01:42:57","slug":"art-exhibition-harmonia-rosales-master-narrative-skilfully-reimagines-european-renaissance-paintings-through-the-lens-of-the-black-diaspora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.watchjaro.com\/art-exhibition-harmonia-rosales-master-narrative-skilfully-reimagines-european-renaissance-paintings-through-the-lens-of-the-black-diaspora\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Exhibition: \u2018Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative\u2019 Skillfully Reimagines European Renaissance Paintings Through The Lens Of The Black Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales creates rich and visceral paintings that recast European Renaissance paintings with characters of the Afro-Cuban Lucum\u00ed religion and Black subjects. In her first solo traveling exhibition, \u201cHarmonia Rosales: Master Narrative\u201d is currently on view at the Memphis Brooks Museum through June 25th. In August, it will head to Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, GA. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosales became enamored with the Renaissance masters in her youth, fascinated by how they blended tales from Greco-Roman mythology and Christianity. However, she only became aware of what was missing from these exquisite paintings after the birth of her daughter. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I had my daughter, it was like I was reborn almost, with these really innocent eyes,\u201d she said in an interview with <\/strong>Memphis Flyer<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cAnd when I took her to see these beautiful paintings that I fell in love with, she didn\u2019t fall in love with them. \u2026 She was like, \u2018They don\u2019t look like me.\u2019 It just hit me that I didn\u2019t want her to feel like her hair wasn\u2019t beautiful, her skin wasn\u2019t beautiful.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Harmonia Rosales, ‘Migration of the Gods’, 2021. via Memphis Brooks Museum of Art<\/mark><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To bring representation to the canvas, Rosales garnered inspiration from her ancestors\u2019 Lucum\u00ed religion. \u201cThese gods [of Greek and Roman mythology] are very similar to the orishas I grew up with all my life, but took for granted because I grew up with them,\u201d she said. Rosales\u2019 intention was to make her paintings accessible to the masses while also incorporating her cultural roots and people from the African diaspora. \u201cTo see us in there, our ancestors, our history in a format where it\u2019s just as time-consuming, looks just like the Renaissance paintings \u2014 the priceless paintings, the most beautiful paintings of the world, can\u2019t touch \u2019em, can\u2019t buy \u2019em \u2014 I wanted to do that in order to empower us and see our history in the same light,\u201d she said. \u201cInclusion, it\u2019s all about inclusion. Seeing this is what I want for my children.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Featuring 20 recent magnificent paintings and a large-scale sculptural installation, in \u201cHarmonia Rosales: Master Narrative,\u201d the Los Angeles-based artist confronts the concept of the master narrative \u201cin a way that collapses the passing of millennia and bridges the vastest of oceans,\u201d reads the <\/strong>exhibition\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> description. \u201cFor Rosales, storytelling is a journey of personal discovery and a reclamation of one\u2019s cultural identity as a means of survival. She asks us to consider the universality of creation, tragedy, resilience, and transcendence through a Black diasporic lens.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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A post shared by Harmonia (@honeiee)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n