I’m Fernando “Ski” Romero, a graffiti artist and muralist born and raised in Astoria, Queens. I came up in the 1990s, learning the language of the streets, painting trains, walls, and tunnels just like the New York graffiti writers who defined the culture before me. The city was my classroom long before any art school, every tag, every wall, every battle taught me how color, motion, and storytelling could coexist on concrete.
After graduating from Thomas Edison High School, I studied at Parsons School of Design, where I earned a Marketing degree in 2002. For a while, I worked in PR and corporate marketing, but that world never felt like mine. In 2005, I left my nine-to-five behind and set up a small art stand on Prince Street in SoHo. I didn’t know it at the time, but those weekends painting on the street would become the foundation of everything that followed. People connected with the work, it was honest, fast, emotional, and it carried the DNA of the city.
By 2008, my paintings had moved from the sidewalk to the gallery wall. My first group shows at Cheryl Hazan Gallery (2008) and Eden Fine Art (2009) introduced my work to collectors and curators who saw the same thing I did, graffiti as fine art, not rebellion. Since then, my work has been exhibited internationally and featured in collections from New York to Dubai.
My practice has grown beyond galleries. I’ve collaborated with brands like Davidoff Cigars, Round21, and NBA Lab, painted large-scale public works for Citibank, Hotel Indigo Williamsburg, and NYC Health + Hospitals, and participated in community-based projects that bring art into places that need hope and connection. My mural at Lincoln Hospital, created with Bronx youth through the Guns Down, Life Up program, remains one of my most meaningful works.
Over the years, my art has appeared on shows like Californication, Ray Donovan, and Hot97, but my roots are still in the streets. What drives me hasn’t changed: telling stories through layers of color, movement, and rhythm that reflect the pulse of the city and the people in it.
Today, my work is represented by Hamilton-Selway Fine Art in Los Angeles and Pop International Galleries in New York City, where I’ve been proudly represented for nearly fifteen years. I continue to paint walls across the country and abroad, always searching for new ways to blend graffiti’s raw energy with the structure of design and the heart of community.
For me, it’s still about growth, about staying true to the culture that raised me while pushing its boundaries further. Every mural, every canvas, every collaboration is a step forward.
Art started as survival for me. Now it’s legacy.
Working across walls, canvases, and installations, Fernando “Ski” Romero pushes the language of urban contemporary art through layered drips, vivid color, and textured storytelling.
His approach treats every surface as a dialogue, where murals become therapy, prints become memory, and collaborations evolve into cultural touchpoints.
From private collections to public spaces, Ski’s art reflects the energy of New York while resonating in cities worldwide.