Artist Harmonia Rosales, an Afro- Cuban American artist that is currently based in Los Angeles, California remakes renaissance art which includes African American individuals. She says she recreated these paintings to show the world what she would like to see and what she would love for her kids to see, so they feel more celebrated and included in this world. Harmonia Rosales says “I want my daughter to accept herself, her afro, everything. When she began to grow up, she started to notice the difference of her skin color from the other kids. I wanted to create something for her.” seeing the idolization of a fairer complexation with untextured hair lacked diversity within the arts, grew Rosales to see something wrong with the things these paintings shown. Renaissance paintings were made to celebrate humans in their naturality, for black/African American to be excluded in this furthermore pushes the idolization of white people, excluding the beauty of color. Harmonia Rosales then notes “We have this notion of not being respected enough, strong enough, so why not take powerful images like god, or Jesus, or Adam. But I didn’t want to retell the same story. Also, to create some unity to give off the same message, but in a different way; We don’t need to be separated.” in Harmonia Rosales’s works she intertwines the traditional works of renaissance with a modern, diverse depiction of people of darker tones, of different ages, and different stories to tell. Through art Harmonia Rosales challenges social/religious beliefs. Such things like what a god or goddess looks like, what they think, and what do they represent.
Harmonia Rosales Challenges History’s Perceptions With ‘Master Narrative’ | Essence
Reclaiming Our Identity: Q&A with Afro-Cuban Artist Harmonia Rosales — The Latinx Project at NYU
