script, establish a counter-narrative.”“White figures are a staple in classic art featured in major museums. They are the “masters” of the masterpieces. Why should that continue?”“When you consider that all human life came out of Africa, the Garden of Eden and all, then it only makes sense to paint God as a black woman, sparking life in her own image,” she added. Nevertheless, the idea of a black female God got many angry, with some even demanding why she had based her painting on Michelangelo’s work rather than coming up with something new. Growing up, Rosales, who calls herself a self-taught artist, took classes and got herself admitted to the University of Illinois College of Fine and Applied Arts. She said people were never sure of her ethnicity.“They’dCreation of God, but her mother talked her out of it.“Having never really felt that unfiltered racism, I thought about stopping.“When I became really sad about the comments, my mother said, ‘That’s going to make you an artist. The controversy. I was waiting for that.’”Her mother, Melodye Benson Rosales, was an artist herself, who had dared to write and illustrate Twas the Night Before Christmas, featuring a Black Santa Claus in 1996. She had done same for Leola and the Honeybears: An African-American Retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in 1999. Rosales, who had never thought about the importance of issues of colour, had a change of mind when she had her first daughter. Till date, the 34-year-old mother of two said her children are the reason