The Denver Art Museum commissioned a short bilingual graphic novel for its exhibition Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools, using contemporary illustration to question the history of Balthazar in European art.
The Return of Balthazar was written and illustrated as a science-fiction response to paintings of the biblical Magi.
A figure created through centuries of legend
The Gospel of Matthew does not specify that there were three visitors, describe them as kings or provide their names. Those details developed through later Christian tradition.
Balthazar was eventually associated with Africa or Arabia. Yet for centuries, European artists frequently represented him as white while placing a Black servant beside him.
The graphic novel asked how Balthazar might respond to that visual history and how he might describe meeting the infant Jesus from his own perspective.
Contemporary narrative inside a historical exhibition
The artist developed the work through script writing, rough sketches, detailed digital drawing and colour using the open-source programme GIMP. Each page required approximately 20 hours of illustration.
English and Spanish versions were presented in the exhibition. Producing the Spanish edition also required manual adaptation of punctuation not included in some comic-book fonts.
The commission did not imitate Flemish painting. It introduced another medium and another voice into a display concerned with religious imagery and social identity.
The Return of Balthazar demonstrated how a museum can place historical works in dialogue with contemporary fiction. The graphic novel honoured the Christian tradition while refusing to accept the racial assumptions embedded in many of its visual representations.