CREATING ART WITH TRUMP AS HER MUSE
This NJ painter is a real MAGA-langelo
She’s Trumped the shark. Lena Ruseva, a 44-year-old Soviet emigre, is causing a stir with her provocative series of paintings depicting the former president.
In “Trump: Parallel Universe,” a collection of 30 paintings, Ruseva imagines Donald Trump as Neptune, a Buddhist monk, Tarzan and a sphinx. One image depicts him making contact with alien life; another has him riding a great white shark while draped in a US flag.
A 48-by-72-inch acrylic on canvas titled “Expulsion From The White House” shows Trump as God expelling a naked Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The imagery is derived from Masaccio’s Renaissance fresco “Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.”
“I wanted to play around with childish fantasies,” Ruseva, who lives in Fair Lawn, NJ, told The Post. “Some people hate him and call him racist. Some people love him and they are real fanatics. Everyone has their own picture of Donald Trump.
“I like Donald Trump, as he is a strong person. It’s easy to criticize. It’s easy to say somebody is wrong or bad, or whatever, but how many people have reached what he reached?”
Ruseva, a green-card holder from Moldova, immigrated to the United States in 2012 and got her start as a muralist. She spent 18 months painting the walls of a kindergarten in Clifton, NJ.
When she’s not painting politics and presidents, she makes a living producing kitschy commissioned portraits of jowly animals, frequently smoking a cigar. The portraits generally run from $500 to $1,200 depending on the size.
Ruseva’s work has been well-received in MAGA land. Her exhibition was hosted at the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side last month, and she has palled around with former White House personages, including Andrew Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn.
So far, seven pieces from “Trump: Parallel Universe” have been sold, fetching $1,000 to $4,000. Another art show dedicated to Trump is planned for Palm Beach, Fla., in January.
But in left-leaning New York City, the artwork is not without drama. A gallery that had agreed to stage the show backed out at the last minute after receiving violent threats, Ruseva said.
She said she herself was harassed and threatened online as news of her show spread.
“U will get f- -ked big time for this. Just wait and see. Now go f--k yourself,” read one Instagram message. When an insurer learned of her art’s subject matter, they asked Ruseva to tack on “terrorist insurance coverage,” she said. The NYPD alerted the Department of Homeland Security to the event, Ruseva said.
The artist insists she’s not political but says she has been disturbed by how Democrats have moved to curtail free expression like hers.
“In Russia, you try and post something against government, [and] in three to four hours someone will knock on your door,” she said. “I hope it’s not going to happen here.”