New York City has always been a city of layers. Old posters peek through new ones. Neighborhoods evolve while holding onto their history. Cultures collide, overlap, and create something entirely original. Few artists capture that feeling as vividly as Bianca Romero, a New York City mural artist whose colorful mixed media work has become part of the city's visual identity.
Her murals are impossible to mistake. Bursting with bold color, hand-cut street posters, spray paint, acrylic paint, typography, and powerful portraits, Romero creates work that celebrates women, culture, identity, resilience, and the people who make New York extraordinary.
"I would say my style is colorful, contemporary, focused on themes including women's empowerment, identity, culture, emotion, design, with an homage to New York City," she says. "Every project is different and sometimes there is a specific message or theme of the mural."
That ability to make every mural feel unique while remaining unmistakably hers is what has made Bianca Romero one of the most recognizable mural artists working in New York today.
Her signature collage technique did not happen overnight. It grew alongside her, inspired by the streets she has walked her entire life. "The collage technique is something I have done my whole life and developed over the years," Romero explains. "I am heavily inspired by the visuals of NYC walking around and a big inspiration to me is all the street posters you see wheat-pasted everywhere. The gritty collaged parts when some are layered over each other and ripped up."
For Romero, those torn posters are more than an aesthetic choice. They tell a deeply personal story.
"When you collage you take pieces from different places and then rearrange them together to create something new," she says. "That is very much me being from a multicultural background with my parents from two completely different countries and cultures." As a Korean and Spanish first-generation American and a native New Yorker, Romero sees her own identity reflected in every layer she builds. "Collaging always felt like taking parts and pieces from different contexts and creating something new, which culturally feels very much like me and my experience navigating two completely different cultures."
That idea appears throughout her work in subtle ways. "I also many times paint the people in my art with half one color and half another color, and that is a small nod to being different cultures." It is a detail many people might not notice at first glance, but once you do, it becomes impossible to unsee. Every mural becomes both deeply personal and universally relatable.
New York itself is perhaps her greatest collaborator.
"I just love everything about NYC," she says. "It is the most familiar to me growing up here. I am visually always inspired by it, but also the energy, resilience, diversity, creativity of the city is a constant inspiration to me. There is always something new to observe and take in."
That inspiration has turned into murals across the five boroughs, each carrying its own message and connection to the communities around it.
Among her most meaningful works are her collaboration with Maker's Mark, her AAPI mural on Delancey Street, the Power to the People mural featuring Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis, her mural at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was born, and her newest project at Time Out Market Union Square, located in the neighborhood where she grew up.
"It has been a full circle moment," Romero says of the Union Square mural. "Personally meaningful to me getting to paint a new mural at the Time Out Market in Union Square."
Many of Romero's best-known murals go beyond beautiful imagery. Works like Spread Love, Stop Asian Hate, Power to the People, and her Ruth Bader Ginsburg mural explore justice, equality, representation, and women's rights without sacrificing visual impact.
"I think that is the balance public art needs to strike," she says. "Create art but when possible, do something that is meaningful to the community."
The causes she paints are also the causes she believes in. "The topics of those murals, justice, equality, women's rights, are very important to me, and whenever I can, I try to paint about those."
For Romero, creating public art is also an act of visibility. "A big part of public art, for me, is about the ability to take up space. I think that in itself as a woman is important to do." Her murals do more than decorate buildings. They become landmarks, gathering places, conversation starters, and daily reminders that public spaces can inspire hope.
Perhaps the greatest compliment an artist can receive comes not from critics, but from the people who pass their work every day. "Most of the time I hear from people in the neighborhoods where I paint and it is always positive," Romero says. "It is the real reward to know that your art brightened someone's day, or someone's daily commute, or uplifts their neighborhood."
For anyone hoping to experience her work in person, Romero has a few favorite stops for a self-guided mural tour. She recommends visiting the AAPI mural on Delancey Street, the Union Square mural at Time Out Market, the mural inside the Arlo Hotel Williamsburg, and the large-scale mural at Atlantic Terminal next to Barclays Center.
While many know Romero through her public murals, her studio practice reveals another side of her creativity.
"My paintings usually have more detail of actual street posters that I pull from the streets," she explains. "I love design and typography and I tend to have those more in my paintings."
It is there that viewers can appreciate the intricate textures and typography that inspired her long before her work appeared on walls throughout New York City.
Creativity also runs in her family. Romero credits her father as one of her biggest inspirations. "I get inspiration from my dad who was an illustrator and designer," she says. "He designed the original WNBA New York Liberty logo, the basketball in the Liberty torch and the letter font that the Liberty logo is in." It is a fitting legacy for an artist whose own work is already becoming woven into New York's visual history.
Bianca Romero's murals remind us that cities, like people, are made from countless layers of stories, cultures, memories, and experiences. Whether she is celebrating identity, honoring community, or transforming an ordinary wall into something unforgettable, every piece reflects both the city she loves and the people who call it home.
The next time you walk past one of her murals, slow down. Look beyond the colors. Notice the torn posters, the textures, the subtle details, and the stories hidden beneath the surface. You may find that, much like New York itself, there is always another layer waiting to be discovered.
If you are looking for contemporary New York City mural artists whose work continues to shape the city's creative landscape, Bianca Romero is one to watch. Her walls tell stories today that will continue inspiring New Yorkers for years to come.
