World’s Stage

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances…”

William Shakespeare

Influenced by the old masters — a connection that has helped him achieve a high level of success as an illustrator — the art of Ricardo “Ricky” Jose Mujica is an amazing mix of different currents and movements. As a “humanist representational painter”, he is constantly looking for poetry of the extraordinary as it is embedded in the ordinary. An ordinary where “Mother” is very often depicted as the hero, the purveyor of life, the root of civilization. “She is our collective conscience.”

“Using an amalgam of procedures derived from the Formalism of 20th Century Abstract Expressionism, the retinal painting of 19th Century Impressionism, and the Objective light and form of 17th Century Baroque, and synthesized through the pictorial lens of a staged Shakespearean drama, my work seeks to demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells stories that exemplify the effects of cultural awareness over the latter half of the twentieth century. A time that presented us with a new humanism, with the sexual revolution, and with the women’s movement.”

Born and raised in New York City, Ricky has lived in many places like Africa, Norway, Germany, Mexico, Australia or France. He has created art for major magazines including The New York Times and Ebony. On March 2016, Florida-based tattoo artist Ryshell Castleberry used Ricky’s Multitasking painting as the image for a tribute to all stay-at-home mothers and housewives via Facebook. The post has been liked over 600,000 times and shared by more than 300,000 people.

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