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UC Santa Barbara’s Museum of Art, Design and Architecture (AD&A) presents a fascinating 2022 exhibition centered on the Black experience, featuring mostly new work by artist Harmonia Rosales, who draws on the elements of Renaissance painting. The metaphor reimagines the story from the black West African religion of Yorùbá.
The exhibit inspired a traveling exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA), which will soon visit Spelman College, a historically black college and, most recently, a catalog
(MBMA/Paul Hopperton, 2023).
“Rosales has created a new Renaissance visual that highlights the black and Latino experience,” said Helen Morales, Argyropoulos Professor of Greek Studies at UC San Diego, who contributed to the new publication. contributed. “Her work draws on the transatlantic slave trade, so many Yoruba myths barely survive.”
Morales was chief curator of the AD&A exhibition Harmonia Rosales: Entwined, which MBMA later expanded under the title Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative.
The exhibit, currently on view at MBMA through June 25, is curated by Patricia Daigle ’15, an alumna of UCSB’s Art History PhD program.
A classicist and cultural critic, Morales’s research has identified mythology as a fundamental belief and space for cultural resistance, for example in her book Antigone Rise: The Subversive Power of Ancient Mythology (Bold Type Books, 2020).
Rosales’ paintings first caught her attention because of how they interacted with and superseded Greek mythology.
Rosales’ painting style reflects classic Renaissance works for which Morales was known, such as the Sistine Chapel, but they depict scenes from West African mythology.
By reinventing European Renaissance styles to depict the story of the West African slave trade and the spirit of Yorùbá (known as orishas), Rosales contributed to rewriting the major narratives of art history.
Morales sought advice from Elizabeth Perez, an ethnographer and historian of African-American and Latin American religion at the University of California, San Diego, to deepen her understanding of West African religions.
“Rosales is focused on what brings us all together,” said Morales, who wrote an essay for the catalog. “It’s social justice, but with an optimistic trajectory. Rosales is more interested in our connections than our differences.”
Rosales uses Greek and Roman mythology to captivate the viewer and then take them into territory they may not be familiar with.
For example, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus tells the story of the goddess Oshun.
“[It’s]the story of how she challenged Olodumare, transforming herself into a peacock into the sky, only to get sunburned, leaving her with blond spots,” Morales wrote.
“Greek and Roman mythology is a smuggling of Yoruba religion in a way that is quite different from, but still reminiscent of, the way the Lukumi originally identified their gods with those of their slave masters,” Mora Rice said.
The first academic collection of Rosales’ work, the new catalog includes more than 20 paintings and a sculptural installation. The illustrated catalog also includes biographies of the artist and several scholarly essays exploring topics ranging from storytelling to depictions of beauty, race and diaspora.
AD&A Academic Coordinator Sophia Quach McCabe, who participated in the “Tangled” exhibition, also contributed an article.
Both museums have acquired permanent collections from the “Wounding” exhibition. Rosales presented AD&A “Oshosi Gets His Crown,” a 2019 oil on Belgian linen; MDMA received “The Migration of the Gods,” a 2021 oil and Gold leaf canvas.
“It was by accident that ‘Entwined’ was organized by my alma mater Art at MBMA, who started working at MBMA after the acquisition process had begun.
“At the time, Harmonia had never had a solo museum exhibition outside of California or New York, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to showcase her work and our new collection in the South.”
Daigle notes that the Memphis exhibition includes the addition of “Master Narrative,” a massive sculptural installation that reimagines the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as the hull lining of an overturned slave ship.
“It has been a pleasure working with the team at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and seeing our Harmonia Rosales ‘Entwined’ exhibition come to fruition under their care,” said AD&A Director Gabriel Ritter.
“Because of their dedication, their expanded exhibition, together with the accompanying catalog, has enabled a greater understanding of Harmonia’s painting practice, not to mention reaching new audiences,” said Ritter. “It’s great to see the scholarship of the UCSB faculty and the curatorial work of the AD&A Museum staff spark a spark for a major arts institution like Brooks to pick up the baton and move forward.”
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