Rafael Francisco Salas is a Wisconsin based artist. He combines landscape, the legacy of portraiture, architecture, and country music into artwork evoking a strange, rural poetry. He is represented by Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Salas is also a contributing writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newcity Art Chicago, The Isthmus Magazine and Urban Milwaukee.

In 2022, Governor Tony Evers appointed Rafael Francisco Salas to the Wisconsin Arts Board, the state agency responsible for the support and development of the arts throughout Wisconsin.

Salas is a Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Ripon College in Ripon, WI.