Bisco Smith is an American contemporary artist whose creative journey spans music, graffiti, and the dynamic interplay of visual and auditory expression. His work, celebrated for its lyrical deconstructed expressionism, captures the raw energy of fleeting moments through gestural marks and abstracted text. Bisco’s practice, rooted in the symbiotic relationship between music and art, transforms canvases and sprawling murals into rhythmic compositions that pulse with motion and spontaneity. Employing a predominantly black-and-white palette, he reduces his creations to their essence, channeling the universal rhythms of sound and movement into visual form.

Using music as both muse and method, Bisco approaches each project as an improvisational dance between inspiration and execution. His works, whether on canvas or city walls, resonate with an urgency and vitality that invite viewers to immerse themselves in the intersection of sound and paint.

Bisco Smith has exhibited his art, performed music, and collaborated with global brands and events, including Nike, Turner, SLS South Beach, Adidas, and Coach New York. His portfolio features solo and group exhibitions across major cultural hubs such as New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Miami, Berlin, Seattle, Lisbon, Lagos, and Hong Kong. His creations have garnered international acclaim, making him a sought-after artist among collectors and enthusiasts.

Graffiti / Between 1993 and 2013, Bisco honed his artistic voice through graffiti, a practice chronicled in seminal works such as Broken Windows Graffiti NYC and Burning New York by James and Karla Murray, Fresh Paint NYC by Billy Schon, and Ronald Kramer’s The Rise of Legal Graffiti in New York and Beyond. Within these pages, Bisco’s reflections on the ethics and evolution of graffiti offer insight into the culture that shaped his vision.

Music / Parallel to his graffiti endeavors, Bisco found a natural extension of his creativity in music. Graffiti and freestyle rap became intertwined, each fueling the other in a cyclical burst of inspiration. Beyond performing his own music and releasing records with the Brooklyn-based label, Embedded Music, Bisco designed album covers and art-directed projects for prominent labels such as DefJux, Ninja Tune, and Eastern Conference.

Visual Art / Drawing inspiration from his early years painting in the streets, Bisco employs materials such as household paint, rollers, spray paint, and wheat paste to create layered compositions that defy conventional categorization. His works often incorporate text that is so thoroughly abstracted it becomes indecipherable, encouraging viewers to focus on the energy and design rather than literal meaning.

Bisco’s understanding of spatial dynamics, cultivated during his graffiti years, reimagines abstract expressionism through a contemporary lens. A reviewer of his 2016 exhibition at CAVE Gallery in Venice, Los Angeles, described his process as “splattered with syncopated swirls, the grace of the letter, drizzles or jabs of paint—the mystery of learning how to trust the process is spelled out, moment by moment.”

Positive intention is a cornerstone of Bisco’s artistic philosophy. Through his work, he seeks to merge life’s experiences with the immediacy of the present, creating pieces that reflect the state of our world and inspire hope and possibility for the future.