Rafael Francisco Salas

• M.F.A., The New York Academy of Art
• B.A., Macalester College

I am a Wisconsin-based artist. My artwork combines landscape, the legacy of portraiture, architecture, and country music into artwork evoking a strange, rural poetry. I am represented by Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I am also an arts writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newcity Art Chicago, The Isthmus Magazine and Urban Milwaukee.

In 2022, Governor Tony Evers appointed me to the Wisconsin Arts Board, the state agency responsible for the support and development of the arts throughout Wisconsin. I also serve on the Executive Board of the Museum of Wisconsin Art and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

I am a Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History here at Ripon College.

What’s your favorite topic or course to teach and why?
I love teaching my introductory courses to drawing and painting. It is so fun for me to see students who have not had much experience or opportunity to study art take on a new, visual language and see the world through this lens.

What’s your workspace like?
My studio is very chaotic. I organize and prioritize, but to anyone walking into my workspace it will look disastrous. Welcome to the inside of my brain.