Ricardo Jose Mujica: A Portrait of Controversy and Positivity | October 21 2024, 13:50

Today, I present the American artist of Cuban origin, Ricardo Jose Mujica (b. 1961). Born and residing in New York City.

The first painting in the gallery is Multitasking (2012), a portrait of the artist’s wife and child. In the same year, Ricardo shared it on Facebook (having sold the canvas itself for next to nothing). As he mentions on his website, for many years since, he’s been receiving threats from angry women convinced that he had somehow obtained their photograph without consent, demanding either compensation or immediate removal. Meanwhile, many men, baffled by how and where Ricardo might have seen their wives naked, have threatened to break his legs.

Although his body of work isn’t extensive, his paintings are soft, kind, and filled with positivity.

Posts like these are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and all 119 works can be found in the “Art Rauf Likes section on beinginamerica.com—unlike Facebook, which either forgets or ignores nearly half of them.