Name/Title
PaintingEntry/Object ID
2024.215.1Tags
Local ArtistDescription
Watercolor gouache on paper. Painting of Ceresco prairie in winter. 20"x24" attached to board and framed.Artwork Details
Medium
Watercolor, GouacheSubject
Study for muralContext
This painting was done as a study for a mural painted in 2014 on the side of the building at 220 Watson Street. The painting seen here depicts the Ceresco Prairie in the winter. However, the final mural features the original Long House of the Wisconsin Phalanx, home to the first settlers of the Ripon area, who arrived on May 27, 1844. Salas designed and created the mural to reflect the optimism that inspired the creation of Ripon and the city's transcendence in the face of conflict.
Ripon is Salas' home town. He graduated from Ripon High School and then earned his BA in art at Macalester College in Minnesota and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art. Salas is a professional artist, Professor of Art at Ripon College, and an art critic. His art focuses on pastoral scenes and glimpses of everyday life in the rural Midwest. He relates this to his experience being of Mexican heritage while growing up in rural Wisconsin and the ways in which those identities clash or blend.
Salas primarily works with oil paint, recently in neutral shades and earlier with more vibrant colors. He also does work in graphite. His work is particularly interesting due to its melancholic portrayal of traditionally idyllic rural moments. Some of his most recent artworks include vibrant color accents in simple shapes which he describes as a connection between the past and a technology-fueled present.
Recently Salas was appointed by Governor Evers to the Wisconsin Arts Board, a state agency which serves to uphold and grow the state's artistic community. He also recently exhibited at the Museum of Wisconsin Art. He is responsible for three murals in Ripon-the Diverse Not Different mural on the campus of Ripon College, the Black Lives Matter piece on The Heist, and The Long Way Home which resides on Watson Street.
Written by Ripon College Students Stephanie Peters, Aftyn Reinwand, and Bailey Zanck.