Biography

Born in New York in 1964, William Cordero aka BILL BLAST is one of the most prominent New York writers of the early 80's and part of a small group that managed to move from the subway trains in Harlem and Queens to the galleries of Manhattan. Unlike his peers, Bill Blast painted very few trains, preferring the walls of basketball courts.

In 1982, he painted two monumental murals in a handball court then nicknamed "Rock Steady Park". The first was called "Sky's the Limit" in reference to the lyrics of the song “Keep On” by the band D-train. The work depicted several iconic NYC landmarks and served as a poignant illustration of the song's lyrics. The second mural was called "Eye of the Tiger". Today, the murals have long since disappeared. The small field between Amsterdam Avenue and West 99th Street that was once home to the B-boy legends of the Rock Steady Crew has been rehabilitated and the handball court no longer exists.

Bill Blast was originally a student at the High School of Art and Design. After working as a consultant on the 1984 film Beat Street (directed by Stan Latham), he joined Parsons School of Design to pursue a master's degree in painting. As his practice and skills as a muralist developed, he started to be commissioned to produce murals for WCVB-TV, the ABC in Boston, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey which manages the city's transportation system, and the "Art Train", a traveling museum currently in Detroit.

Bill Blast has also exhibited at Yaki Kornblit Gallery in Amsterdam, Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, Gallozzi La Placa Gallery, Fun Gallery, MOMA in New York, The Graffiti Museum in Miami and now in Paris through the gallery Graffiti & Co Fine Arts.