Harmonia Rosales

Harmonia Rosales
Rosales in 2021
Born	February 6, 1984 Chicago U.S.
Known for	The Creation of God (2017 painting)
Style	Painting
Parent(s)	Giraldo Rosales, Melodye Benson Rosales

Harmonia Rosales (born 1984) is an Afro-Cuban American artist from Chicago. Rosales 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 artistic style are 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?”

Creation of God, 2017, oil on Belgian linen

In 2017, Rosales posted an image, The Creation of God, on social media, of her first completed work for her solo exhibition Black Imaginary To Counter Hegemony. The painting is an oil-on-canvas piece that took two months to craft. In this painting, Rosales recreates Michelangelo’s Creazione di Adamo (The Creation of Adam) by displaying both God and Adam as Black women. The Creation of Adam shows 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 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 6, 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.

She obtained a license in hair stylist and graduated with a degree in Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rosales's upbringing also influenced the specific themes of interest in her paintings. Her father, Giraldo, who was the Assistant Director, ODEA at Office of the Chancellor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, often filled the house with his congo playing and his Lucumi upbringing. Rosales’s mother, Melodye, a children’s book author and illustrator, would incorporate her African-American roots to recreate popular children’s stories with people of color. Melodye was continually challenged, in her upbringing, by her skin color and hair texture 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 Exhibits and Collections

• The Harvest, 2018, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum South Hadley, MA
• Oya's Betrayal, 2020, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture NW Washington, DC
• Miss Education: Reclaiming Our Identity, March 11 - May 24, 2022, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA)

Career

Early career

Although Harmonia began exploring her talents by painting simple classic portraits during her high school years, her career really took off in late 2014. After working at United Foundation for Arts and Technology, a family owned non-profit, she began to broaden her scope and slowly build a following. From painting portraits to full collections. 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.’

In 2017, Rosales participated in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry: Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition. 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.

2016 1st place winner of the Black Creativity award

Her first solo show, titled "Black Imaginary to Counter Hegemony," was installed at the Simard Bilodeau Contemporary in Los Angeles.

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

Birth of Oshun, 2017 Oil on Belgian linen

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 painting Creation of God. 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. In this painting, Oshun has vitiligo that is made of gold patches that have roots in traditional Nigerian storytelling traditions. 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. 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.