0:51How the ‘Banksy of Baltimore’ earned that rep
He’s been called the “Banksy of Baltimore,” gaining notoriety for the wire street art installations he constructs, possibly illegally, in the Maryland city and throughout the D.C. area. And like Banksy, the world-renowned, England-based street artist whose murals are highly regarded for their political commentary, Reed Bmore aims to make a statement with his art.
“My entire existence is political,” he said. “Everything that I represent and even the things that I create are because I want to rebel against these systems that tell us something that we are not.”
While he acknowledges the nickname, Reed Bmore’s work is distinct from his anonymous counterpart. When it comes to their art, there’s no mistaking his metallic wire creations, which hang innocuously from traffic lights like ornaments, for Banksy’s graffiti.
It takes three things to mold his work — galvanized steel wire from the hardware store, a really good set of pliers and “arthritis,” which he said was a reminder for himself to take a break. Because while some of his designs can take just a few minutes to make, some take a few days, depending on the details or the subject matter.
Reed Bmore (a nom de guerre) has been operating as an artist for nearly 17 years and leaving his wire installations around Charm City, the D.C. region, and other parts of the world since 2014.
“I do street art to get a broader message out there, and the broader message is there’s people there that are in power who are fully taking advantage of all of us in the system,” he said.
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Reed Bmore’s wire art conveys a powerful message
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He hung a wire sculpture of the character Healthy Holly tied up outside of city hall in April 2019, amid allegations of fraud against former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, the author of the Healthy Holly books. Pugh was sentenced in 2020 to three years for fraudulently selling her self-published children’s books to nonprofit organizations to promote her political career, The Associated Press reported.
Last June, after the details of President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to cover up the Epstein files were revealed, Reed Bmore said he would consider displaying the names of the victims or any of the people whose names appeared in the files. It’s a long list, and he said there are a lot of traffic lights in D.C.
He would need a lot of wire.
Under the wire of the law
Reed Bmore has come up with a system to get his wire sculpture in hard-to-reach and high-traffic spaces.
He’s got a design similar to a carabiner that he uses to clip his work to wires and traffic lights. His carabiner system makes it easy to put up his wire sculptures, but it would require a cherry picker to take them down. He has used a ladder and climbed on top of cars.
“Whatever you can to just figure it out at that moment. The most important part is you got to stay agile. You have to be accommodating to the environment that you’re in and just work around it,” Reed Bmore said.
He said he hasn’t been ticketed so far.
“You could get away with a lot especially with being a Filipino, especially with being like an overlooked race in America, by just putting on a reflective vest. You just put on a reflective vest, and nobody gives a s—,” Reed Bmore said. “You’d be plum surprised about the amount of people who didn’t even look up to seem interested, whenever I was just installing a piece right in front of them. They’ll look up and then they go right back to their phone.”
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How Reed Bmore hides in plain sight to install his art
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‘I found myself constantly trying to tone myself down’
Adopted from an orphanage in Manila, Philippines, Reed Bmore was raised in a “very American household” in Maryland. His interest in art started at a young age, eventually leading him to the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he studied environmental design work.
He said he’s only really known an “American lifestyle,” except for holidays when his “titos” and “titas” would come over from Virginia Beach with trays of lumpia, puto and other Filipino desserts.
When he was about 14, his dad let him graffiti his room, even buying him the spray cans. But he also hears his father in the back of his head telling him to be as humble as he can.
“We try to be nonchalant Filipinos, but it’s in our blood to be ‘chalant,’” Reed Bmore said. “I found myself constantly trying to tone myself down.”
His artwork is the only area where Reed Bmore doesn’t feel an urge to subdue his true chalantness, he said.
He is a generation that’s far removed from Filipino culture, and he said what he represents as a Filipino American artist is what happens when “colonization wins.”
Although his street art aims to send a broader message about humanity, politics or power, sometimes he just likes to remind his friends all over the country that he’s been where they often pass by.
“I’ll just go over and put something up just for, I guess, the foot traffic, and so it would be like a nice little, maybe, inside joke between both of us,” he said.
He is at a point in his life when he said he is trying to be a little bit more grateful about making a piece and installing it.
“Once I have it up there and I put it out to the public, it’s not mine anymore. Technically, it is not mine,” he said. “Just making sure that I cover my bases and I get a good photo of it afterward. It’s all that really matters to me.”
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