Marcus Romero is a graffiti artist who chooses to paint on naked women rather than walls on the street.
Romero, a UNM student and artist, began delving into the Albuquerque graffiti scene when he was in high school. By his first semester of college, he began composing his ‘blackbook,’ a sketchbook in which graffiti artists keep their pieces.
There are three kinds of graffiti: tagging, or simple lines; bombing, which is outlining with interior and exterior; and piecing, or wildstyle graffiti akin to murals. As an artist, Romero focused on piecing.
“I never really did too much of it in high school. I kind of just focused on my grades,” he said. “But I wanted to balance being focused on school with some form of rebelling, so I had some kind of weird balance. It worked out in my head. It’s kind of abstract, but I was going through a lot; I was developing my own art, experimenting with my own expression, and this was one way.”
Romero said his artistic vision is not manifested in an exclusive medium, nor is his purpose fully realized. His interests range from painting and drawing to physical therapy, fractals and education, all of which he hopes to incorporate into a single concept to educate people on a mass scale.
When his graffiti captures the interest of the kids he works with at the YMCA, Romero tries to steer them into a positive venue for learning. For instance, he said he has been experimenting with different ways of learning that incorporate art, science and math, such as the “Fractal Man.”
“I let them experiment with whatever they want, but I try to guide them to the right path,” he said. “I know that life and what it’s about, and I know the consequences behind it, and I know a lot of bad things that are wrong with it. They can fall into bad trends, so I try and tell them about the bad trends and redirect them toward something positive.”
His belief is that art serves a higher purpose. With graffiti, he said he was trying to spread positive messages based on issues he had indirectly experienced.
“I took notice of what was occurring around me a lot more, a lot of my friends, like girls that were friends of mine, had been raped and things like that, so I started putting up (anti-rape) messages,” he said.
A number of reasons came together that eventually prompted him to stop doing graffiti. Graffiti is a high-risk art form, and Romero said he was put off by the “toys,” or cognitive amateurs, who do it with negative intentions or for superficial reasons.
“They’re not really preaching to a message — they’re not doing it for art. They’re doing it for destruction,” he said. “They’re not really doing it for passion. They’re still learning, they’re still developing, but the point is that’s when the art stops, because people ruin it.”
However, he didn’t give it up until his mother, who encourages his art and believes in his ability, asked him to stop.
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Romero said graffiti is no longer a significant part of his life. Still hungry for the rush he said graffiti gave him, Romero found an apt substitute: painting naked women
“It’s either being chased by cops or being around a naked female,” he said.
Romero estimates he has painted on roughly 25-30 women using acrylic paint pens.
Erika Spiess met Romero through a mutual friend. After a few months of knowing him, she said he suggested it jokingly and she went for it. Many people she told reacted in disbelief, she said, because they didn’t understand that it was art and not sex.
“People think automatically like, ‘Oh, you got naked, what the hell?’ and it wasn’t like that at all, it wasn’t anything sexual,” she said. “Some people need canvasses, paper or the computer, whatever it is. The human body is just beautiful in itself. I think Marcus uses it as a canvas perfectly, and what better canvas than a woman’s body that’s beautiful as it is?”
