Shawn Bullen is a painter and muralist based in New York City who grew up on Chicago's South Side, where he began tagging with markers at seventeen before studying photography and attending Columbia College Chicago. He transferred to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, where he started doing professional mural work through the city's government mural program. Bullen co-founded IDC Art House with friend Chris Gary, a collective focused on community-engaged public art, and later opened IDC Gallery. He moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2012, spent several years in San Francisco, and returned to New York by 2016. His large-scale paintings and murals, influenced by artists including Kehinde Wiley, Basquiat, and Chuck Close, have been shown in solo and group exhibitions and as part of 836M's mural and gallery programs in 2017 and 2023.