To celebrate Bianca Romero’s largest work to date, The Culture LP sat down with the New York based mixed-media artist to learn more about her process, challenges, and goals for future projects.
The Culture LP: How long did it take you from the initial request for work until the installation was complete? Can you talk a bit about the different phases?
Bianca Romero: The whole process took about two months from when the creative was approved. But if we’re talking about from the first call until completion, that probably was about five months. First I showed a few mural concepts, everyone made tweaks and once the creative was approved I spent about a week really planning the best way to go about producing this to make it look it’s best, figuring out the proper scaling, proportions, materials etc. then I went to work.
That’s a pretty long time. Surely you learned a lot in the process. What was the most difficult part of this project and in hindsight, is there anything you would do differently?
The most difficult thing was making sure the elements I wanted were big enough to scale, and that each section had equal spacing. Also, the mural was created on panels off-site at my studio, but due to the sheer size of it, I could only work on 3-4 panels at a time, and had to rotate them out. So I’d say the most challenging thing was making sure the scale, proportions, and overall look was consistent from start to finish with only being able to see a small portion at a time.
We remember you sending us some in-progress shots from your studio. What materials were used in this work?
The mural is comprised of wood panels, collage, Kobra spray paint, wheat-paste, and acrylic paint. Each section has a collage background of landscape, street, and nightlife scenes from the respective country.
Which bottle/section in the mural is your favorite and why?
That’s a tough one, I love them all, and each one is pretty unique and have elements that I love and each had their challenges. I’d say I love the Japan (Yamasaki), Mexico (Hornitos), and NYC (Basil Hayden’s) sections the best. Mostly because of the color schemes. I love the way the boat and water look in the Mexico section and I love how to subway comes out of the Basil Hayden’s bottle.
Photo Credit: Henry Danner, 2018
Do you have any advice to artists looking to create on a similar scale?
Don’t be scared to take your time to properly plan. Rushing through it might end up causing much larger issues down the road. I really took my time, did my research and asked as many people as possible the next way to scale and execute.
What do you think the future of Brand and artist collaborations looks like?
I think it’s been increasingly more common and will only become even more prevalent. Over the past few years there’s been this resurgence of appreciation for the arts. It’s really incredible to witness. Creatives are the source of culture and lifestyle, and are representative of society and our social climate. Artists always have powerful points of view and are capable of putting visuals and color together in an impactful way that any audience can understand and appreciate. I think brands really understand that now.
What’s next for you? If funding wasn’t an obstacle what kind of work would you want to put out into the world?
This mural really pushed me to create at such large scale, and I really want to do more of that. I used to shy away from large canvases or murals, but now I love them! I want to work with all sorts of venues and spaces. Restaurants, hotels, buildings, festivals, event spaces, art installations etc. Really any type of environment, or unique spaces. I want to bring color and my style to all sorts of spaces. I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out how to make my style come through regardless of the space or concept. I’d love to do more 3-D art installations (I did one for food network last year) and to be able to travel more for mural jobs as well.
Photo Credit: Henry Danner, 2018