Harmonia Rosales, The Creation of God
Harmonia Rosales is a Chicago-based artist who draws inspiration from her life experience as a woman of color. In her work, Rosales combines traditional expression and form of figurative painting with dedication to social action. The artist’s unique perspective serves as a tool for battling with injustice, particularly that of black women.
Rosales’ “The Creation of God” is based on the famous Michelangelo’s masterpiece “The Creation of Adam”. Reimagining the outstanding near-touching scene between God and the first man, Rosales depicts both of them as black women. This, according to the artist, creates a counter narrative.
“I wanted to take a significant painting, a widely recognized painting that subconsciously or consciously conditions us to see white male figures as powerful and authoritative and flip the script”, Rosales continues to explain in her interview to BuzzFeed News. Through empowering a dicriminated group of people, the artist’s work reminds us that representation matters and strives to recondition our minds so as to accept genuine concepts of human value.