Vincent Peters, also known as ÆTHELSTAN, uses his platform as an artist to make a difference in people’s lives. The artwork within his exhibitions always features something informative about society. He is passionate about his craft and his outreach to audiences. One of the greatest aspects of being an observer of his works is there are opportunities for you to get involved and help communities.
About the Artist
In addition to being a visual artist, Peters is also a technologist. He creates art “to more clearly share my vision of the future and to commentate with as little words possible on things that are going on in the world.”
He is the CEO and Founder of Inheritance Art, an artificial intelligence and animation studio within the NFT space.
He studied engineering, AI and Blockchain at West Point, Oxford and MIT. He is also a former alum of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink companies.
He uses acrylic paint and oil to create: neo expression paintings on current events and hyper realistic ones on individuals in society.
Cuban Government Decree 349
The decree makes it illegal for artists in Cuba to put on creative events on any medium of fine and performing arts. Artists need to receive permission from the government and ensure that it does not contain any “sexist, vulgar or obscene language.” Artists are prevented from selling their works, and if they do not abide by government law their works can be confiscated. The decree has been a law since 2018, few artists have received government permission, and the majority of artist communities have been affected.
Peters has collaborated with Decree349R, a non-profit organization aimed to change Decree 349. Find out how you can get involved here
Interview
Arts Tribune: I was told that I could call you Vince, and that would be okay. But I have to ask you, do you prefer to go by your creative name, ÆTHELSTAN?
Vince: No, I don’t really. That’s more of it’s a requirement, right? Because, you know, Vincent Peters or Vince Peters is a super boring do everything by the books, go out to all the right schools person. But ÆTHELSTAN is like, hey, don’t play by the rules. Say what you want. Get things done as quickly as possible and don’t think about them. Unintended consequences. So I think that’s a little bit of a split between all of us. We have like one side we tend to lean towards, but when I’m making art, like I just want to make art and don’t care about the consequences
Arts Tribune: When did you discover that name and when did you adopt it as a part of your creative identity?
Vince: I love history. I just really love history. And just looking back at just different historical figures, I mean, even African rulers like Mansa Musa or Skip Muhammad. We talk about black history, but typically that starts here in the US. But Africa existed before the United States. The one that really stuck out to me other than ÆTHELSTAN I think it was Gaiseric the King of the Vandals who actually conquered Rome, and he had the Roman emperor actually kiss his feet. He was one that actually stuck out to me. ÆTHELSTAN was one as far as looking at like, where the world is now, where you have like this emerging market of digital art and NFTs.
And you have like this super traditional fine art space that’s really been around. It hasn’t been disrupted since the 1600s. And you’ve got these folks that really don’t have the pedigree to really make noise with the fine arts. But then you have somebody like me who has the pedigree, I have the artistic ability, I have the vision of the future to make a difference, to reconcile the old and the new. And when you look at the different rulers that reconciled, I would say ÆTHELSTAN was probably the most prominent as far as King Alfred had a vision for the future of what the United Kingdom could be. And you had the Vikings who would come and raid the different English territories. And then from the vision of Edward, I mean of Alfred to Edward ÆTHELSTAN was the one who was able to actualize that vision and unite all of the different things going on into what became a United Kingdom and like a roadmap for what exists today. I mean even with the death of Queen Elizabeth and everyone is so sad about that. And I mean, there’s many nations that still live under imperialistic rule or use imperialistic currencies even till today. And it’s like the person who really created that thing was ÆTHELSTAN. And then I’m kind of like the person who’s disrupting it, but also creating order within art. So there’s a bunch going on there, but it’s like in my mind that’s like a historical person that I can draw some inspiration from like he came into the world at a very… how do you say it? On unknown time, there’s opportunity left and right. And he made a way that’s kind of existed from back then to now. And, you know, when you look at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. I mean, their business model has been the same since the 1600s.
Arts Tribune:I have to ask you, just casting your mind back to the beginning of your creative journey, was there something in particular that inspired you to be the artist that you are today? Or was it something where you figured out, well, I have a talent for this-let me develop it? What is the big inspiration that has propelled you and in your career to what it is now?
Vince: I think my biggest inspiration is nobody ever knows what I’m talking about because I feel like I’m so far in the future, if that makes sense.
And you have to provide so much context it is very much intellectual. Intellectual equity into putting this thing together or explaining to people where I’ve just found this easier to show people. So my first artistic endeavors became, hey, we’re going to create digital humans that are going to exist indefinitely beyond the life of an individual. When we recreated Will Smith’s father in 2020, who passed in 2016. It was very hyper realistic, very indistinguishable from real life. The issue with that is that art just took forever to make I mean, from ideation to actual execution can be anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks. And as I matured as an artist, it was like, hey, I really love this art form of hyper realistic four dimensional assets, working with different studios that work with Steven Spielberg, that work with some of the creative folks behind Avatar.
Like working with folks that put that together and James Cameron. Somethings takes forever. And sometimes as an artist, something happens and you just want to represent that. So if that is the ideation to execution or let’s say actual actualization is eight weeks, that becomes too long of a time period. You want to represent what you’re feeling at that moment while that moment is real in the public psyche. And that’s where I kind of discovered or that’s exactly where I discovered this neo expressionist style that my friends, my friends hated it. They’re like, oh, you’re drawing stick figures. And I’m like, No, it’s like I’m drawing emotions. I’m drawing how I feel. I’m drawing how I feel in these paintings that are representative of what I felt like. I can look at a specific painting and say, I felt this way when I’m painting and I know exactly what point in time it was in my life. So that’s where like it went from. Like there’s a very distinct style of hyper realistic, beautiful things that we’ve got from Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein. But then there’s also like this very raw know we did I did something for SBF yesterday with what’s going on with crypto. The first paintings I did was called “Not Okay,” which was essentially capturing my feelings on Uvalde and the shooting that occurred there. So I guess that’s my artistic journey and like not an elevator pitch, but like a little bit longer than an elevator pitch.
Arts Tribune: I’ve been doing a little bit of research and it seems like your latest exhibition was entitled Art is Dead. Is that exhibition over? And if so, was it successful? Did you get a lot of people to come out and support it? How was it received?
Vince: Oh, it was. It was well received. That exhibition was amazing. 250 people showed up. CNN was there. They actually spent the whole day with me. The following day after the public exhibition, I had a number of-I don’t know if you’re familiar with Brock Pierce. He’s a crypto billionaire. He ran for independent president, his vice president, who ran with him in 2020-Carla Ballard. She actually came and spent like a couple of hours just really walking through the collection and understanding my inspiration. We had a lot of people there. I mean, with me just being so new to art, my success has come in NFTs and that’s a very specific way in which you sell them. I’ve sold some significant pieces for 40 and $60,000 in real life art, but it’s like actually presenting that art and talking to you when people are like, how do I buy it? And I’m like, I don’t know, let me figure that out and get to you. That’s what we’re actually working through now. But the way that it was received when we were working on it, folks that were there thought it was amazing. It was a joint presentation or a joint exhibition. And I mean, there was one place in the area that was like head and shoulders, like more attention than anyone else.
Arts Tribune: Do you know when your next exhibition will be or are you going to break?
Vince: We’re planning an exhibition in New York right now that we’ve well, now that I’ve kind of figured out what an exhibition is as a digital artist and now a physical artist. We’re going to be doing one in New York, and the collection is going to shift a little bit. There’s people who have already started to buy pieces, Iced Tea, bought the first piece of the collection. And it’s just like really figuring out, well, yeah, Iced Tea. You bought this, but can we can we continue to borrow it just to show the submission?
Just working through those things, the proceeds from the actual sales of the artist debt collection are going to Cuban dissident artists or artists in Cuba who are being oppressed or being impacted by what’s called Decree 349, which does not let artists in Cuba make art publicly and display it unless the government approves it prior to that.
So that has been really my focus of this collection. My main thing when I left Space X is I didn’t want to do something commercial. I wanted to do something that was meaningful. And I just so happened to be blessed that I can make art and make meaningful art with people who really care about art, who see art as a vehicle for change. And those are the type of people that I look to work. I am working with them now and will continue to work with them in the future. So Luis Manuel Alcantara Otero, he was a Time Magazine Person of the Year for 2021. He’s currently serving five years in prison for doing performance art in Cuba. We have a music artist by the name of Michael who was a performing artist on a song called “Patria Vida.” He’s currently serving nine years in Cuban prison. Just continuing to work with people like that, get their stories out. The exhibition is really just about different things that happened in Cuba around their performance of art and bringing awareness to that, hey, you know, if you go 45 miles south of Miami, there’s a place where you have people who can’t make art freely. And I mean, the truth of the matter is, a lot of those people look like you and me. And if you go 45 miles north, like you’re in Fort Lauderdale. Imagine that happened in Fort Lauderdale.
Arts Tribune: As far as this Decree 349 goes, how long has it been in existence in Cuba? Is this a new phenomenon or is this something that’s been going on for a while?
Vince: No, I think the actual decreasing for 991 is saying I might be right or wrong. It’s like 2019, 2020. I have to actually look that up. But then actually enforcing it and putting, let’s say I mean, the music artist that I mentioned, he won Latin Song of the Year for 2021. He’s in prison for performing that song in Cuba. Wow. So the aggressive enforcement of Decree 349 has really happened in the last two years. A lot of the attention is around what the current state of affairs are for Afro-Latinos, folks of darker color has died down. And to me, it was like when I first started on this project. I was interested. But when I sat with those artists who are amazing artists who have to leave Cuba and come to Miami, right, and they would be exhibiting artists in Cuba, but in Miami they are busting dishes or doing something that is not within the scope of their artistic ability. And then I saw those people look like my uncles, my grandparents, my family. Like, that struck another nerve and it brings tears to my eyes now. But that is why I’m involved in this. My kids are half Cuban. They draw on everything I can. I can’t imagine them living in a world where they couldn’t artistically, freely, express themselves without the fear of being imprisoned or treated in a certain kind of way by the government.
Arts Tribune: I’m also aware that in the United States, Cuba was on the restricted travel list for many, many years. But it’s now off of that list, and it has been so for at least a few years now, I believe. I can’t remember if it was under President Joe Biden or another President. So I was wondering now that Cuba is going to have more American tourism, presumably they’re going to want to enjoy the culture, they’re not just going to go there just to experience the culture’s food. I mean, they want some arts and culture. I mean, they’re going to want to see some theater. They’re going to want to see paintings. They want to see a concert. But what I’m hearing right now is if you’re a tourist from America or wherever and you give a visit to Cuba, you can’t have access to those things. Is that accurate?
Vince: That is the state of affairs. When I sat with these…I hate to say it sometimes I’m just dumb American, right? And I’m talking to these artists and I’m looking at the pain in their eyes. I’m looking at the persecution. I’m like, you can look at an individual and see that they’ve lived a certain type of life sometimes. And I’m like, but I just saw Fast and Furious and you see Vin Diesel and all these guys like driving around in lowriders and having fun and they’re like, no, that is the part of Cuba that they allow the tourists to see and is not real life Cuba for Afro-Latinos or any person that is not within the regime. That is not the existence for 90% of the people in Cuba. So when you see that kind of art it’s a part of culture that is presented to a tourist. It absolutely has been vetted by the government to make sure it’s consistent with the image that they want to upkeep, that things are peachy keen.
Arts Tribune: Could you just tell a little bit about what the nonprofit (Decree 359R) does and why should everyone around the world be interested in this organization?
Vince: Folks should be should be interested in the non-profit because it is essentially a vehicle to help establish reparations for those artists who have been impacted by Decree 349. And then, I mean, one of the funny things is, hey, you have artists and people of color who’ve been oppressed by for a long amount of time in Cuba. And we figured out a way to quickly be able to repatriate funds to those people who have been oppressed. But then you got myself, who is African American living here in the United States, and we still haven’t figured out reparations for our people in 400 years-that’s true. So I think that’s a larger and a later problem. But I think the immediate problem is there is a finite number of artists who are being impacted by this and with decentralized finance, with crypto, with and just non-profits, there is a way to repay repatriate funds to them once they come to the US and then highlight their work on exhibitions around the world. So Decree 349R is all about repatriating attention and repeat repatriating funds to those artists so that when they leave Cuba or they’re already here in the US and they’re doing these jobs that are not within their artistic ability, that they can go and get a grant and that they can go and get supported. And when Luis Moya gets out of prison, there is some money put aside for him to do things and to further his vision and further his work. So that is what Decree 349R is all about, it’s the Irish word for reparations. And that’s why people should care.