Zarabea Esfendiar Kayani (Bea Kayani) also knows in the digital art world as ARTJEDI1, is a British contemporary artist of mixed heritage, working across a research-based trans-disciplinary visual art practice rooted in expanded painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, lens and time-based media, ai and code.

Kayani situates image-making as a shared event, an unfolding encounter between nature, matter, perception, and technology. Whilst documenting histories of human conflict zones, she further explores how events are seen, recorded, and circulated. Kayani connects these visual and material traces to a cartography of attention that shapes collective memory. Technology runs through her practice as both tool and subject. Each process reveals how materials and environments register human and ecological conditions such as war, movement, erosion, and renewal, and how these traces shift over time. Kayani’s works align with contemporary philosophical approaches (Liquid Modernity) and new-materialism that examine perception and matter as co-constitutive forces. Through this focus, she explores how art can articulate new forms of understanding in a post-humanist era defined by interdependence between human, nature, and machine.

Since 2021, her engagement with the global decentralised art networks has expanded these investigations into questions of authorship, value, and digital archiving within blockchain ecologies. Between 2017 and 2021, she founded and served as Director of TAPS (The Artist Project Space) and Kosar Contemporary, independent artist-led initiatives that established city- and region-wide networks supporting experimental art and culture. This period shaped her understanding of collective practice, public engagement, and the social infrastructures that sustain artistic production. It also grounded her ongoing interest in systems of perception and the soft power of networks, exploring how artworks circulate, connect, and generate shared meaning across communities. In 2016, one of her collaborative works with Francesco Tuccio was acquired by the Deputy Mayor of Lampedusa for the Maritime Museum in Italy, marking an early recognition of her inquiry into migration, history, and environment.

Kayani’s artistic trajectory began in Switzerland, and she has exhibited internationally since 2011. Born in Pakistan, she has lived and worked across the Middle East and Europe. Since 2015, Based in Bristol, UK, where she is a selected studio artist since 2020. This geographical and cultural bridging within her lived experiences continues to inform her exploration of identity, memory, perception, transformation, and the shared field between material processes, human experience, and decolonising methodologies.

Spike Island Studio Artist Profile

Header Image: Self-portraits I, II, & IV, Bea Kayani.

Sculptures; photographs, resin, recycled rail girders, recycled metal - Visions Of Science, Edge Arts Bath, University of Bath, UK, 2018 - Image Credit: Chris Lucas

Exhibitions, Talks, Events

2025

Behind The Scenes, British Heritage Open Week, Spike Island, Bristol, UK

Amor Fati, Test Space, Spike Island Studios, Bristol, UK

Open Sandwich Talk, Spike Island, Bristol, UK

Chador, Vivid Gallery, Switzerland , France

2024

Digital Art Group Show, Gallery Iham, Paris, France

2023

Panel Speaker - The Future of Digital Art, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

Focus Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

Poesia De Protesta, Librairie Métamorphoses, Paris, France

SBJKT POEM OBJKT Catalogue, L’Avant Galerie Vossen, Paris, France

POESIA DE PROTESTA, TheVERSEverse Group Show, Zero Space, NYC, USA

2022

Guest Speaker, Houses of Parliament, London, UK

Panel Speaker, The evolution of Decentralised Tech & Art, Houses of Parliament, London, UK

Selected Artist - Brytehall, Representing UK, London Tech Week, UK

Panel Speaker, The Digital Art Market, Miami, USA

SCOPE Art Miami , Makersplace Booth, Florida, USA

2021

Virtual Exhibitions throughout the year

2020

TAPS 2020, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol, UK

2019
Embeded stories, 2019, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol, UK

2018

SPACEs reimagined, Kosar Contemporary, Bristol, UK

166th Annual Summer show, Royal West Of England Arts Academy (RWA), Bristol, UK

Seities, The Vestibues Takeover, City Hall, Bristol, UK

Passion For Freedom, Group Show, La Galeria Pal Mal, SW1 London, UK

Visions Of Science, Edge Arts Bath, 2018, Bath, UK

Kopfkino, Group Show, 2018, St. Paul’s Crypt, Bristol, UK

2017

Masters Fine Arts, Degree Show, Spike Island, Bristol, UK

Guest Speaker, Art In Activism|Activism In Art Symposium, UWE, Bristol, UK

Tate Exchange - Collaborative Workshop with Spike Associates, Tate Modern – London, UK

2016

RWA Artists Network Group Show , RWA - Royal West Of England Academy – Bristol, UK

Self-led Artist Residency, Museo del Mare – Lampedusa, Sicilia, Italy

2015
Group Show, Bath Society Of Artists 110th Annual Exhibition, Victoria Gallery – Bath, UK

Guest Speaker, LASER (London Art Science Rendezvous), University of Westminster in collaboration with Central Saint Martins – LASER, 10/2015 London, UK

Group Show, SCOPE Art Miami, Florida, USA Group Show ,

Academy Of Fine And Applied Arts – Exeter, UK

Shortlisted Artis, Passion For Freedom Art Festival, Mall Galleries, London, UK

2014

Emerging Artists Group Show, Castle Fine Art Galleries, Mayfair – London, UK

Group Show, Times Square – NYC, USA

Group Show , Bath Charity Art Auction – Bath, UK

2013

Group Show, 44 AD Gallery – Bath, UK

2012

Solo Exhibition, 2012 Eredi Pisano, Madison Avenue, NYC, USA

2011

Group Show, St. Gallen, Switzerland, CH

Education

M.A. Masters Of Fine Arts Practice, 2017 University Of West Of England - Spike Island, Bristol, UK

Critical Theory Of Contemporary Art Practice: 2014 Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London (UAL) UK Introduction To Art Law : 2013 Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, UK

An Introduction to Art Law: 2014 Sotheby's Institute of Art - London, UK

Art And Finance In A Global Market: 2013 Sotheby's Institute of Art - London, UK

Exhibition Programming & Curation

2020:

Sol: 21st Century Landscapes, Kosar Contemporary February 2020 (Programmer/ Event Organiser/ Facilitator-- Kosar Sounds Vol# 1 - Loco Klub - An immersive audiovisual event, February 2020 (Programmer / Organiser/Commissions)

2019:

Restless Linings, Kosar Contemporary, November, 2019 (Programmer / Co-curator / Event Organiser) Cosmic Fishing, Kosar Contemporary, August 2019 (Programmer / Facilitator / Event Organiser)

The Last Stop, April-May 2019 (Programmer / Event Organiser)

HUMAN PAIN(tbrush), Kosar Contemporary, April 2019 (Programmer / Facilitator )

TAPS Open Studios, April 2019 (Collaborator / Facilitator )

Tunisian Collaborative Painting, UK, Kosar Contemporary, April 2019 ( Programmer / Event Host)

Pantheon, Kosar Contemporary, March 2019 (Programmer / Curator / Facilitator ) EmBEDded stories, Kosar Contemporary, Feb- March 2019 (Programmer / Curator)

You’ve Got Five Minutes by Andrew Neil Hayes, Kosar Contemporary Jan 2019 (Programmer)

2018

Spaces Reimagined, Kosar Contemporary, December 2018 (Programmer /Event Host)

Seities, The Vestibules, Bristol City Hall, September 2018 (Collaborator)

Kopfkino, St. Paul’s Crypt, July 2018 (Collaborator / Facilitator)

Projects:

Founder & Programme Director:

The Artist Project Space https://theartistprojectspace.com

Founder & Director: 2018-2021

Kosar Contemporary https://www.kosarcontemporary.com

Director: (ex)

Bristol Echelon Arts Ltd