Bernard Solco is an American multimedia artist based in New York City, best known for his large-scale paintings of product barcodes. From a young age, he demonstrated a deep fascination with the arts, exploring diverse media including painting, photography, mask-making, and sculpture. At just eleven, he sold his first painting, and by fourteen, his distinctive style had already earned him numerous awards in juried art shows and competitions.

While still in school, Solco worked part-time as a paid apprentice for a New York City graphic designer. After graduating high school, he chose to continue working in the graphic arts field rather than pursue a traditional art school education—an unconventional decision that helped him develop a bold, self-taught approach to his craft.

Over the following years, Solco built a successful career as a freelance graphic designer while continuing to paint and sell his work privately. A pivotal moment came when a fellow designer introduced him to a New York City art dealer who was immediately drawn to his canvas works and offered him a solo show in Soho. In 1996, Solco officially launched his full-time career as a fine artist, debuting a striking body of work that garnered critical and commercial success.

Since then, his artwork has been exhibited and collected worldwide. His paintings and sculptures have been featured in major international publications including The New York Times, The London Daily Mail, and Smithsonian Magazine. Prominent collectors in the arts, business, and entertainment worlds have acquired his works, and he has been commissioned to create portraits and original pieces for distinguished figures such as Donald Trump, Brooke Shields, Siegfried & Roy, George Steinbrenner, and Rudy Giuliani, among others.

Bernard Solco is recognized as a visionary and is the first artist to elevate barcodes into the realm of fine art. He began experimenting with barcode imagery in 1990 and debuted his first solo exhibition, American Product Series, in Soho in 1996. The exhibition featured twenty large-scale hand paintings depicting the barcodes of top-selling consumer products. His monumental barcode works have since been commissioned by collectors around the world and acquired by major corporations including Kellogg’s, Eastman Kodak, Nabisco, and M&M Mars.

In 1997, Solco became one of the first civilians introduced to emerging barcode technologies, including QR codes and other 2D symbologies, then primarily used in the government and defense sectors. This exploration culminated in his 1998 series SYMBOLOGY, featuring more than thirty large-scale matrix barcode paintings commissioned by both private and corporate collectors.

His barcode art has also been recognized by the information technology industry; in 1999, Auto Identification Magazine named Solco’s work among the most significant developments in information technology. His paintings have been exhibited internationally in collaboration with leading tech corporations such as Symbol Technologies, Robotic Visions, and Zebra Technologies, with shows in New York, London, Brussels, and Paris.

Today, Bernard Solco continues to push the boundaries of visual communication. His latest series of paintings integrates digital interactivity, allowing viewers to engage with each piece through a mobile app—transforming them into the world’s first “talking paintings.”