The Alchemist

Obatala, the orisha responsible for creating humankind, sits in his studio surrounded by his creations, including the first woman Eve. Her red dress, crumpled but ready for its owner, rests under the rooster. Obatala’s love for palm wine may be seen in the half-formed male nude on the right, indicating his story of succumbing to it during his creation of humans, thus explaining genetic abnormalities. Around the studio, symbols of Obatala’s labors emerge: the rooster assisted him in the formation of land on earth; and the white chalk will be used in divination to plan Eve’s life. Rosales blends the orisha story with Greco-Roman and Baroque art.

The painting features Eve in a classical contrapposto stance as well as the Belvedere Torso, a 1st-century BCE sculpture whose discovery in the 1430s became foundational for Renaissance art. Rosales’s commentary on the Baroque draws from the work of Dutch 17th-century artist Cornelis Bega and his painting The Alchemist (1663).