Twelve years ago, a visitor to the island was so impressed with artist Jerome Taylor’s captivating paintings of the Jamaican countryside that he bought four pieces to display at his Serengeti Gallery in Washington, DC, in the United States.
That gave the young artist a boost of confidence and cemented his focus on painting scenes depicting rural Jamaican life – capturing the country bus loaded with baggage on top to women washing clothes by the river, old stone bridges, farmers in the field, and men playing dominoes at a shop by the roadside. But, he explains, he captures other scenes as well.
At the time, Taylor revealed to The Gleaner that he started doing art from he was a “little boy”, in his preteen years, before deciding at age 18 that that was what he wanted to do full time.
It has been 12 years since that momentous sale that took his work to an international audience and Taylor, a well-known artist across the region, continues to grow in his craft.
Last Saturday, he marked the first year since the opening of his art gallery, Hava’s Art World, located at 12 Main Street in Ocho Rios, St Ann. The gallery means Taylor has shifted gear from being a mobile art dealer to one with a base where he can be reached easily.
“This month makes one year I’m at this location. I opened June 15 last year. Before that, I was working from home and supplying my clients travelling around.”
He said the name Hava was a nickname given to him when he was younger.
“I was about 19 when I had a little studio and named it Hava’s Art Gallery, but when I recognised the talent I have and the work that I can do, I decided to change the name now to Hava’s Art World, meaning that you can get a variety of paintings. It means that anything that concerns the world of art you can get that at Hava’s Art World,” Taylor said.
But, aside from placing him in a prominent position, what difference does having an art gallery make?
According to Taylor, “It tells me that I should have opened this art gallery 10 years ago. When people come to Hava’s, they are fascinated to know that there’s an artist that keeps the culture of Jamaica alive. When they come to Hava’s Art World and see the old country house and the river; the ladies at the river washing; and the old country bus and the old house, like what their grandmother used to have, it gives them the feeling that they are back home again.”
Taylor says while most of his clients are resident and visiting Jamaicans, he still gets a fair share of support from tourists.