Samere Tansley

Specializing in painting, Samere Tansley was trained at art college’s in the UK and came to Jamaica in 1970. She had been a teacher in London and continued in that profession at Camperdown High School for ten years and part-time for fifteen years at the School of Art. Meanwhile she also established her career as artist exhibiting in numerous group and solo exhibitions through the decades, including a solo show in Bermuda in 1997.From the outset, Samere was seduced by Jamaica: its people, landscapes and culture. Living in rural Stony Hill she was surrounded by lush vegetation, flora and fauna and fruits, that she began to detail in her painstakingly realist style. She enjoyed the tranquility of her surroundings and this sense of stillness was captured and became a characteristic in her work. With their heightened sense of colour, use of chiaroscuro, and often mysterious combination of forms, textures and compositional elements, there is something hyper-real or even surreal about her depictions and it is not surprising that her works can be found in the Surrealist gallery of The National Gallery of Jamaica’s permanent collection. The attention Tansley brings to even the most mundane of still-lives transforms them into essays on magic-realism. The same can be said for her portraiture and fantasy depictions. She imbues these dream-like images with a sense of reality that defies their mythical origins. This is when her work is at its most powerful. Through her skill as a painter she is able to tell stories about black culture, womanhood, and our spiritual beliefs in images that are tangible and readily understood by Jamaican viewers. She says: “My aim is to fill my paintings with the emotion and excitement that I feel toward the world around me and to share this visual experience with the viewer”.Her commitment to her craft and to the Caribbean resonates with her audience; as a result her work is highly sought after and can be found in numerous private and public collections.