Looking at Viktoria Veisbrut's newest mural you would never guess her home country was at war.
Stylised versions of popular cartoon characters mingle with Ms Veisbrut's own imagined characters, relaxing, hanging out, and getting along.
Earlier this month, the Russian artist travelled to Australia for the Brisbane Street Art Festival, where, amid her country's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, she painted her vision for a better world on a wall at Brisbane's Howard Smith Wharves.
"It's kind of my dream, when people from different parts of the world can be just friends — and in general like countries — can be just friends," she said.
"They're just hanging out together, having fun, enjoying their life how they want to."
It is a utopian vision crystallised by Russia's conflict with Ukraine, which has changed her whole life.
"There [Ukraine] is completely nightmare," she said.
"Almost all people in Russia have relatives and people who they love in Ukraine — so it's sad and bad."
Ms Veisbrut said the invasion took her friends and family by surprise.
"It started very quick — and we didn't know," she said.
"I just think that it's kind of crazy what happened in the 21st century."
'A little bit apocalyptic'
Ms Veisbrut said it was a miracle she was able to secure a visa to Australia given the international backlash to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"A lot of my friends lost their jobs in a week, maybe, after, because they were working for foreign companies who declined to work with us," she said.
"Now it looks like a little bit apocalyptic … you go to the mall and all of these shops are closed, closed, closed."
She said most international festivals no longer want to work with her.
With her bank card blocked in most countries, she cannot display her work in foreign galleries either.
Ms Veisbrut's visa was approved on the day she was scheduled to travel to Australia – and she still cannot believe she had the opportunity to travel.
"It's a miracle that I get a visa here. I'm so happy for that," she said.
'A good chance for dialogue'
Festival director Lincoln Savage said organisers reconsidered whether Ms Veisbrut should be allowed to join the festival after the invasion.
"We want opportunities for people, and maybe it's a good chance for dialogue to be opened.
"I think it was good to kind of have a connection in a time like this, when potentially a lot of doors are closing, and a dialogue is difficult to have.
"Art is something that, I think, needs to be free."
He said the mural was "clearly a very happy, positive, colourful work — and that is everything that Viktoria does."
'To represent peace … this is always good.'
Plenty of locals urged Ms Veisbrut to move to Australia while she was in Brisbane for the festival.
"Already here a few people told me, 'Yeah, come move to Australia — good place, it's perfect,'" she said.
But she returned to Russia last week.
"I'm not sure that I'm ready and want to leave my home," she said.
"I was grown there. They're my parents and my grandparents, the parents and grandparents of my husband, my kids and my friends and my home."
Facing an uncertain future, caught in a war she did not ask for, she has committed to representing peace — and she is not afraid to do so.
"I don't worry about representing peace. The bad thing is representing war," she said.
"I am thinking that maybe it's time to start a new hippie movement in Russia right now."
