Last month I was invited to participate in my first ever international mural festival, Meeting of Styles Copenhagen. This year's festival took place on the edge of Christiania and coincided with the community's 50th anniversary.

I am so happy to have had the opportunity to paint alongside so many talented artists. This is only the fourth mural I've painted, so it was a great opportunity to learn from those who are much more experienced spray painters. I decided to paint an octopus morphing into neurons, because I'm fascinated by cephalopods' decentralized nervous systems.

I'm hoping this mural festival will be the first of many in the coming years!

I recently painted this mural at 21er Gallery of a giant angler fish illuminating space with her bioluminescent lure. It was great to work on such a big scale and practice spray painting again!

Above are some images of the finished mural and some of it in progress. Below is a short video on Instagram showing some highlights from the creation of the painting process (thanks to Justin and Alice for filming).

I'll be at TwentySquareSeven in Friedrichshain (Kopernikusstrasse 14), Berlin this week showing my original work, prints, and working on some paintings in progress. 

The exhibition will be open from Thursday-Sunday (June 4-7), 11:00-21:00. The Facebook event can be found here.

Berliners are welcome to come by (with a mask, please) to see what I've been working on during quarantine as well as some older works, and newly available prints.

​Below are a few of the paintings on display there.

Check out this interview of me (conducted and filmed by Andreea Dican for her documentary series about creative immigration) to hear a bit about my story, my experience living in different places, and my ideas, and to see some views of my studio in Berlin! 

It's been a busy few months moving, but I'm finally settling into my new apartment and studio in Berlin. I'm excited to share with you some pictures of my new work space here: it's huge (for me at least!) at almost 18 square meters, and gives me lots of room to paint and do other creative projects. I've already started on my first projects and commissions here, and it's a welcome change from my very cramped studio space in Spain. I've also made it a priority to get good and bright lighting (these pictures were taken at night!) so that I can paint at all hours and throughout the Berlin winter.

A quick life update: after almost two years living in Spain, I am moving to Berlin, Germany. I'm currently in Berlin looking for an apartment and dealing with paperwork etc. I'm excited for the many opportunities I hope to find in this very creative city! I can't wait to get settled and get my new studio set up here so I can get back to work painting.

From August 1st to 31st, eight of my paintings will be on display in Seattle, WA, USA at Java Jahn. This is the first time my paintings will be shown on the West Coast of the US, and I'm excited to share my work in a new place! The paintings that will be shown are below (feel free to email hpayettepeterson.art@gmail.com with any questions or if interested in purchasing).

​If you’re at all familiar with my work, you probably know that I love cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, nautilus, even extinct cephalopods like ammonites) and paint them often. There are lots of reasons I choose to paint these fascinating creatures alongside the space scenes in my work: they are beautiful and strange-looking, and can even appear alien-like (note that sci-fi aliens are often portrayed as having tentacles). Cephalopods are also extremely intelligent, with some species of octopus being known to use tools and solve complex problems. And since this intelligence evolved independently from that of humans and other mammals—an octopus is more closely related to a clam than a human—it is the closest to an alien intelligence that humanity has so far witnessed. It serves as an example of another form that intelligence can take in living beings. The structure of a cephalopod’s nervous system makes this clear: rather than having just a large centralized brain, they also have high numbers of neurons in their arms, which can make some decisions independently of the brain. A hypothetical intelligent alien species may just as likely develop intelligence in a similarly decentralized way rather than having human-like brains. Cephalopods are a humbling reminder that intelligence can take many forms and they provide us a chance to study how it may come about via different systems.
 
Watch the video below for some fascinating information about cephalopod nervous systems and behaviors.