Harmonia Rosales Remixes Medieval Masterpieces at The Getty

Summary

• Harmonia Rosales presents new paintings for Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages, now on view at the Getty Center in Los Angeles
• The works were created in response to illuminated manuscripts from the collection
• Renaissance technique and Yoruba cosmology fuse in regal oil paintings with Black women at the center

Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales reimagines who gets to be classical. Her intricate oil works, finished with pearlescent textures and gold leaf, place Black and Latinx subjects at its heart to confront: who is worth a masterpiece?

A new exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles brings Rosales center stage. Titled Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages, the show explores the sociocultural ripples of Biblical origin stories, while reconsidering them for the 21st century.

Rosales presents a new suite of paintings, tapping into the technique and composition Renaissance masters, created in response to Stammheim Missal, the Getty’s treasured medieval illuminated manuscript. By centering Black protagonists in places historically reserved for European bodies, the artist situates her work within a continuum of visual storytelling and spiritual inquiry.

“I approach my paintings as a way to reclaim stories long erased, using Yoruba cosmology to restore strength and presence to figures often left out of history,” the artist wrote in a recent press statement.

The Getty Center show anchors a pivotal moment in Rosales’ career with the launch of her debut book, CHRONICLES OF ORI: an African Epic, alongside “Unbound,” her first public monument. Commissioned by King’s Chapel in downtown Boston as a way to confront its historical relationship to slavery, the piece figures a bronze woman encircled by birds in flight, symbolizing freedom and release.

Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages is now on view in Los Angeles through April 19.

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