Cai Arfon Bellis is a south London based Painter who has Grown up and studied in the city his entire life. After Graduating from the Slade in 2019, he went on to study on the Drawing Year 2022 at the Royal Drawing School where he was selected as one of the New Contemporaries 2023. His work is held in a number of public and private collections including the Government art collection and the Royal Collection.

 

Cai Arfon Bellis makes work about music subcultures that intends to highlighting the importance of community spaces in London. Working mostly from grime and jungle events, two scenes he’s been heavily involved in from a young age. His process starts as on-site observational drawings capturing the relationship between the MC, DJ & crowd. The drawings play with the personal and impersonal, translating his experience, but also representing the shared experiences within these communities. His work is highly gestural and made through dance and so often appears abstract which helps to capture the dislocating nature of these spaces, mirroring the fleeting interactions and shared rhythms of a dancing crowd.

 

“There’s a beautiful moment that occurs when a crowd dancing slips into unison, a brief collapse of individuality where at once you become aligned in a shared rhythm. That’s the feeling my work strives to represent.”