Robert Colescott (1925–2009) was an American painter, printmaker, and teacher best remembered today as disruptor of the art-historical canon by appropriating iconic paintings and reimagining them to include Black figures. The intention was to make visible those who have been traditionally invisible not only in the history of art, but also in American history more generally (Platow & Simms 2019). 

Modern Day Miracles is in many ways typical of Colescott’s work from the 1980s, when he turned to tougher, often more political, subjects, while also introducing biblical and mythological stories or symbolism into his works. At the same time, the compositions became more crowded, more dynamic—people from different eras, narratives, or cultures are brought together, overlapping, often clustered in the foreground, as if urging us to pay attention; to see them.

There is an urgency conveyed in such compositions, the reason for which becomes clearer when considering the subject matter. Here, a large Jesus figure, robed in white, stands out in the middle right ground, his eyes closed, his hand touching a Black woman directly in front of him. The figures in the foreground, although spatially closer to us, are significantly smaller than the two central figures, as if to reinforce their relative invisibility. Several scenes are described here: a bedridden woman is being examined by a doctor with a stethoscope, another female figure standing by her side; next to them a man is eating, while a smiling young boy looks on; further back, a woman is cooking a fish on the stove. The entire scene is lit by one lamp on the bedstand, its colourful lampshade one of several vibrant colours punctuating the composition.

Jesus’s presence in this otherwise domestic scene, combined with the painting’s title, emphasizes his message of compassion for all those who are ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (v.36). In an indictment of ongoing inequality, the painting suggests that the modern-day ‘miracle’ is the very fact that Black people have access to healing and medicine, to food and electricity.