An artist is painting a mural of historical community events on a wall. To make sure that the picture is painted accurately to her vision, she creates a grid for the wall with each unit measuring a meter. In the mural, she paints the first event at (-2, 2), the second event at (2, 2), and the third event at (-2, 4).

The artist plans to fill in the triangular space between the three events with a colored pattern. What is the area of this space?
square meters