Talking Passions: Cai Burton Illustration

Adam first met Cai Burton when Cai gave a talk at a Redbrick roundup event a couple of months back. Thoroughly blown away by his hypnotic artwork and professionalism, Adam stole a business card immediately. After stalking him online for a spell, and falling in love with his illustrated underwater delights, he finally managed to pin him down for a chat about his passion for art.

TP. “As a young boy what did you want to be when you grew up and how did you get to where you are now?”

Cai Burton (CB) “Well, for a while I wanted to be an architect. I even so far as applying to a university for that, did loads of work, a portfolio, and it was around that time that I went through a quarter life crisis or something and just went, the person that’s on that personal statement isn’t me, I’m not really doing what I want to be doing. So I just found myself drawing more and more and realized that actually that’s what I wanted to be doing so I’m just gonna go for that. Since then it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride, doing new things, trying different things, working with loads of different people, that’s got me to where I am now.” 

TP. “Awesome. So did you go to uni to study art in the end?”

CB. “No, I completely withdrew my application and just sort of went from there. I worked in a coffee shop for a bit, and I went through ‘Rife Magazine‘, which is an online magazine written by young people for young people of Bristol, and all of that really helped me to shape what I was doing and got me here.”

TP. “Fantastic. Well you developed an incredible drawing style, I love the beautiful sea creatures, and I really love the almost hypnotic dots and circle patterns you use when drawing them. How did you evolve this style?”

CB. “I’m fascinated by patterns, I just love them when I’m out and about and look out for different patterns that I see, and I think that comes from a lot of the drawings that I used to do in school. If you ask any of my school friends, the front of my physics notebook was filled with patterns and line drawings, because it’s just something easy and repetitive that you can do while a teacher’s talking. From there I kind of played around with it a lot and tried new things, and so now I’m really interested in these spots as more of a mindfulness thing, to really relax me.”

TP. “And your fascination with the sea, how did that come about?”

CB. “I’m not entirely sure, it just sort of happened I guess. I think the first one that I did, I was like, I wanna draw a whale and I’m gonna draw a whale. But the more I’ve been doing it I’ve been thinking, wow, sea-creatures are really cool. I did a jellyfish one and found out that you can get jellyfish that are even bigger than whales, which is just a really scary thing to think about. (Note – I actually googled this out of curiosity and believe Cai is referring to the Arctic Lion’s Mane jellyfish, whose tentacles have been recorded at over 120ft long! Yikes!) It’s just such an unbelievable place, the sea. You get such fascinating creatures there. You can’t not be inspired by it.”

TP. “I agree, and talking of inspirations, obviously Bristol is a hub for that kind of thing, but who are some of your biggest influences in art?”

CB. “There are loads of people I could say in answer to this, I’ve been inspired by so many people around me, but it’s funny because there’s an artist that I looked at while doing my GCSE’s that has always stuck with me. I think her name is Beatriz Milhazes, and she’s a Brazilian artist and again, she does loads of patterns, loads of floral motifs and things like that. The only difference is that she uses loads of vibrant colours and I use just black and white. I feel like you can see a lot of her work in, especially my early work, which I really like, and I’m really proud of that link.”

TP. “I’ll have to check her out. Now I know you work closely with PAPER:Arts and Co-Lab in Broadmead, and have been involved with them for some time. Where did your journey with Paper begin and how have they helped you with your career?”

CB. “Well Co-Lab were actually the first shop to stock my work which was such an exciting moment for me, sending that email and then hearing back, yeah we can stock your work here, that was really cool. Since then I applied to design a window display for them which I ended up winning and doing, so I drew a mural on their front window. I was also asked me to design one of their T-shirts for their artist T-shirt series, which was really cool to get given a brief from them, and to have to create work, and then to see that work selling in the shop. Especially because it was something that I had been thinking about doing but hadn’t quite worked out how to do properly. So it was really exciting to see that in all its glory. Since then they’ve recently taken me on to do marketing and promotional stuff for them in Co-Lab which is really fantastic, because I get to see it all behind the scenes now to know what’s going on, what sells, and how my works doing. It’s a really cool organisation to be part of and I think they do a lot of good for artists that are trying to get themselves out there.”

TP. “Yeah, they seem like they really want to help everybody so I think you’re on to a good thing. As well as PAPER I know you were involved with Upfest this year and you created a piece for the graffiti festival. Can you tell me about your Upfest experience?”

CB. “Yeah, so this was my second year doing Upfest and it’s such a cool thing. I live in Bedminster at the moment, and walking to my pitch where I was painting, it was just so exciting seeing so many people, so many artists from all over the world all creating really amazing artwork on buildings, on boards. It’s such an exciting weekend, and really cool to be a part of it as well, It’s fantastic to be chosen to paint. The weather was great this year on the Saturday so I spent the day painting giant jellyfish of course. Laughs. It’s just loads of fun, a great weekend, great atmosphere, great vibes. I love it.”

TP. “Wicked. Are you involved in any other Bristol projects?”

CB. “Yeah, I’m currently involved with the Freedom of Mind Festival, so I’m doing all of their design work for them. It’s really exciting to see that take shape. It’s their first year launching this festival around mental health awareness and emotional well-being. It’s really cool to work with them and to see it being established from its very small beginnings to where it is now, so definitely check that out.”

TP. “Freedom of Mind, that sounds really interesting. Okay, so the next one’s quite hard but what’s been your proudest moment in art?”

CB. “It’s such a tricky thing. There are so many really proud moments. When you have responses from anybody, somebody buying your artwork in a shop, or just taking a look at your work on a stall, that is such a proud feeling to know that somebody is appreciating what you create. I think that stands for anything, if someone appreciates what you’re doing that’s such an awesome feeling. There’s one moment in particular. Last November I was on the Totterdown arts trail and it was later on in the day, I was sat doing some drawing and this little girl came up to me with her family, with a sense of awe about her, and they were like, we’ve seen you on Instagram, and they treated me like some sort of celebrity. It was so exciting to know that they’d recognised my work and recognised me, and that’s such a cool feeling, when someone knows who you are and knows what you do.”

TP. “That must have been lovely.”

CB. “It was really lovely. I was like, here you go, take a sticker, take a card.” 

TP. “Amazing. Well finally Cai, what do you have in store for us over the next few months?”

CB. “Well I feel like I have a lot that I want to get done, there’s so much in my head that I wanna do. I wanna do this, I wanna do that. I’m hoping to get a new T-shirt range out, that’s gonna be exciting. I’m also gonna do a massive revamp of my website, online store, all of my products, to have a fresh start in the lead up to Christmas. So have a new website, new Facebook arrangement, new Twitter launching in the next few months, so that should be good. A couple of big murals too hopefully, so that should be fun as well.”

TP. “Fantastic. Any new sea creature designs?”

CB. “Well I’ve recently done some seahorses and I’m thinking that I’ll probably work on a shark next so that should be good.”

Here’s a feature on Bristol24/7 called Talking Passions. It’s a Bristol-based interview series that hopes to inspire your creative side by interviewing passionate individuals in Bristol’s arts and music scenes. The driving force behind the series is a belief that within each of us is a creative soul with untold capabilities. It’s not always easy to follow your dreams and try to make it work, and it should be celebrated!

 Started by local journalist Adam Chisman, and with links to various Collectives in the city including Liquifyah, The Coconut Collective, as well as Irish online magazine Ceol Caint, Talking Passions comes in two weekly parts, with brand new written interviews on talkingpassions.com and Bristol24/7 and audio interviews on BCFM’s The Bristol Music Show and Soundcloud. 

If you’d like to get in touch with Cai you can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Etsy, in Co-Lab Broadmead and at www.caiburton.co.uk