Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative features twenty paintings by the Los Angeles based artist Harmonia Rosales (b. Chicago, 1984), who seamlessly entwines the tales and characters of the Afro-Cuban Lucumí religion, Greco-Roman mythology, and Christianity with the canonical works and artistic techniques of European Old Masters. Through her vibrant and visceral paintings, she challenges the concept of the master narrative in a way that collapses the passing of millennia and bridges the vastest of oceans. For Rosales, storytelling is a journey of personal discovery and a reclamation of one’s cultural identity as a means of survival. She asks us to consider the universality of creation, tragedy, resilience, and transcendence through a Black diasporic lens.

Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative is organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara. It is curated by Dr. Patricia Daigle, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.