Robin Clare – Jamaican Contemporary Artist

JAMAICA PROJECT

Bulls Eye is a series of large-scale paintings exploring the cultural exchange between Jamaica and the United States. Tracing how music, dance, and visual storytelling have moved between the two cultures over the last hundred years. Drawing on the bold graphics of vintage comic books and the visual language of dancehall culture, I wanted the works to take on the scale and drama of romanticised cinema posters, reframed through a distinctly Jamaican lens.

My painting style is directly inspired by the traditional Jamaican artisan skill of hand painted signage used in advertising. As you travel around the island there are hand painted signs on walls, bus shelters and entire sides of buildings with a variety of messages ranging from what goods you can buy at local stores and advertising for local businesses to directions and adverts for local go-go clubs. But, like everywhere else, with cheap production costs modern digitally produced advertisements are fast becoming the dominant form of written and visual communication. Enabling a transformation in the way the culture is shaping its messages and portraying itself to the world. My hand painted style is a homage to sign painting which may one day become a thing of the past.

Combining my technique with messages surrounding Jamaica’s party scene opens a dialogue between the fast paced world of the new and an often rose tinted version of the old. Jamaica’s dancehall scene which has come under fire in recent years for it’s inflammatory lyrics is an integral and often controversial part of Jamaican culture offering escapism and entertainment to a population that experiences hardship on a daily basis.