Ricardo José Mujica
Ricky Mujica
Born and raised in New York City, he studied art at parsons art and design high school in Paris and parsons school of design/new social studies, where he received a full presidential scholarship.
Ricky Mujica's artwork was originally influenced by the Old Master, and this connection helped him achieve great success as an illustrator. Before returning to his roots as a great artist, Ricky Mujica created artwork for all the top publishing companies including Harper Collins, Harlequin, Bantam and Scholastic.
He has created artwork for major magazines including New York Times Magazine and Ebony. His work has appeared in commercials for products such as Cherry 7-Up, murals at Sony and Leows theaters, and costumes by fashion designer Rachel Roy. His work has been exhibited several times at the American Illustration Museum.
Since returning to his first love, Fine Art, Ricky has won many awards. This includes first place in the April Round competition at the 2015 Performance Arts Congress (TRAC2015). The iconic status of the American Portrait Society, he has been a finalist in several international competitions and received the Merit Award.
He has been shortlisted for OPA National, Regional and Membership Competitions, Salmagundi Club Membership and Non-Membership Competitions, Joint Artist Competitions, National Oil Painting and Acrylic Painters National Competitions, Richeson Competitions, Artist Magazine Figurative Art Competitions, and ARC International Salon Competitions, where he has won the Art Fair Solo Award and the Honorable Mentionavas Competition in Barcelona. Most recently, Ricky won the Florence and Ernest Thompson Memorial Awards in an exhibition of 103 joint artists and first place at the Lore Degenstein Gallery at Sasquehana University's Ninth Annual Figurative Painting Competition.
He currently teaches at the prestigious New York Art Students Union and has been teaching at the Portrait Society of America. He has given presentations and seminars on figurative painting around the world.
Ricky considered himself a representative painter of humanism. This technique was influenced by Baroque masters such as Rembrandt and Velázquez. His color models were influenced by the ideas of Monet, Hawthorne, and 19th-century retina painting. Contextual thought was influenced by 20th-century modernist thought, especially by Abstract Expressionists like Motherwell, Deben, and Klein. The subject matter was influenced by humanist painters such as Kathe Kollwitz and Mary Cassat.