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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!
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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 was recently hired to paint this giant mural at the Wayfair office in the center of Berlin! Hopefully these jellies can brighten up the office space.
It was a really exciting opportunity to get to work on such a big wall, and I was lucky enough to get total freedom to paint what I wanted to (and decided on some galactic jellies). It was also my first experience working with a large company, and I'm hoping it can lead to more mural opportunities going forward in Berlin and around the world! The mural was created with spray paints, and I was happy to get another chance to work with this medium.  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.
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). On Friday, June 7th at 7:00 PM my latest show opens at Sip and Wonder Coffee House in Alicante! Come join me at the opening to see my new work, chat about art and science and get something yummy to eat and drink. Below are the paintings included in the show.  I recently finished my first ever mural painted with spray paint! It is located at the Ultrasolar Jardín Comunitario de Carolinas, a community garden in my neighborhood in Alicante, Spain. I've wanted to learn how to work with spray paint for a while, as it will allow me to bring my ideas to life on a larger scale and into public places. I love street art and admire the way a colorful mural can transform a space, so I'm excited to be able to share my weird, surreal art with the world in this way. Painting this mural was definitely a learning experience for me. Though I've painted with oils for years, I've never before used spray paint and worked on such a large scale, and the technique is completely different. One of the major differences I noticed was the speed at which you need to work: with oils, I paint very slowly and deliberately, but with spray I had to move quickly and smoothly to avoid the buildup of paint in one place (and drips). This can make it difficult (for the inexperienced spray painter like me, at least) to paint precise shapes or small details. For this reason, the planet was the hardest part of the mural. I sketched the circle onto the wall with a compass made of string, but keeping the planet perfectly round as I outlined and then filled it in with spray paint was very difficult. In contrast, one of the advantages of spray paint is how easy it is to blend colors and create gradients. I found it easiest and most satisfying to paint organic forms like the squid and asteroid due to the facility of blending that the spray allowed. I definitely felt I was able to improve my technique and control over the course of working on the mural.
Overall, I loved the experience and can't wait to paint more large-scale murals! |
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