About Papayon

Artist Bio

Papayon (Roberto Fernando Salmon) is a U.S.-born Latin American contemporary artist whose work emerges from personal rupture and reinvention. His art doesn’t follow traditions — it breaks them. Each piece is a battle between inner chaos and creative clarity, forged from the decision to transform pain into process.

Through mediums like encaustic, spray paint, dirt, recycled materials, and cyanotype, Papayon builds raw, symbolic landscapes that confront themes of resilience, faith, trauma, and identity. His surfaces are imperfect, his gestures deliberate. There is no decoration here — only confrontation, reflection, and emotional weight.

Based in Houston and deeply connected to Mexico, Papayon creates from lived experience. Years of internal struggle, depression, and self-reclamation fuel a body of work that is unfiltered, vulnerable, and alive. His art is not a response to the world — it’s a reckoning with it.

Papayon’s work has been exhibited across the U.S. and Mexico, featured in media, fashion collaborations, and cultural programs. More than an artist, he is a voice for transformation — creating not to impress, but to impact.

Artist Statement

Nothing in my work is accidental. Every stroke, every material, every texture is a declaration. My canvases aren’t meant to be pretty; they are meant to be battlegrounds—places where rebellion collides with vulnerability, where discomfort breeds reflection.

For over 4 years, I fought my own mind, waking up every day with the thought of ending it. Instead, I made a choice—to turn pain into process, struggle into structure, chaos into art. That choice is what defines my work.

I paint resilience, not as a polished ideal, but as the brutal, unfiltered clash of fear, doubt, and the fragile hope that keeps us moving. I explore self-worth, anger, madness, inequalities, comparison—the emotional landscapes we pretend not to see.

Spray paint, soil, recycled plastic—anything can be a medium, because everything is a message. My art doesn’t aim for comfort. It aims to unsettle, to disrupt, to demand engagement.

Art is my truth. And my truth is imperfect, defiant, and alive.


Exhibition List

Solo Shows

2025 - Unseen Art Exhibit
Chelsea Museum District, Houston, TX
2024 - Aesthetic Anarchy
Museum District, Houston, TX, U
2024 - Vivid Visions: Embrace the Art
Chelsea Museum District, Houston, TX, USA
2024 -  Mimosas and Art: A Gilded Affair
Montrose Blvd. Houston, TX, USA
2024 - Contravene : The Speak Easy Art Exhibit
Museum District, Houston, TX, USA
2022 - Democracy on the Dance Floor
Casa Villa, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
2022 - Viva la Irresistance!
Distrito 60, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
2021 - Disruptive Art
Xico Inc, Phoenix, AZ, USA





Group Shows


2024 - Polarity
Kroma Art Houst, Houston, TX
2023 - The Other Art Fair
Dallas Market Hall, Dallas, TX, USA
2023 - The Austin Pancakes & Booze Art Show
The Far Out Lounge, Austin, TX, USA
2022 - Pop Up Artist Studio X Gallery
Arts Council of Park City, Park City, UT, USA
2022 - Arts Festival Tempe Festival of the Arts,
Tempe, AZ, USA
2022 - Urban Arts
Utha Arts Alliance, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
2022 - Anthropy
Bluedesert, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
2021 - Latino Arts Fest
Christian Center of Park City, Park City, UT, USA
2021 - Artists in Motion
Edge Water Artists, Chicago, IL, USA
2021 - Convergencia
Soph Art, Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico
2021 - Liberty Station
Art Walk San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
2021 - Little Italy
Art Walk San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
2021 - Expo Art Baja
Eclectico Guadalupe, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, Mexico

  • Restaurant Wall Art Collaborations

My signature style has adorned the walls of eateries across various locales, infusing them with a global artistic allure.

  • Fashion Show Collaboration

Merging graffiti art and haute couture, I've brought a unique artistic perspective to designer wear, redefining the boundaries between art and fashion.



    Media Coverage


    Contact Information
    - Email: roberto@papayonofficial.com
    - Phone: (480) 791 8067
    - Instagram: @papayonoficial