Kimlayn Jeffrey

I’m a Jamaican-born painter based in Miami. I spent my early childhood in Jamaica, and that place still shapes everything I make: the people, the colors, the way families hold each other without always saying so. I trained in fashion design at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and taught myself to paint, and that background shows up in how I think about structure, texture, and color.

My figurative work centers on Caribbean family life and what gets handed down between generations, the love and the silence both. Every painting starts with molding paste, building texture into the ground before any color goes on. Backgrounds stay solid so the figures have room to stand, and I work in oil with clean, intentional strokes because I want every mark to feel decided.

My newest series, Yard Notes, Volume 1, is seven paintings of the people and places of Kingston and Pennington, Jamaica: my grandfather reading the Gleaner on a Sunday, my uncle walking with his stick, schoolchildren outside Devon House.

My work has been featured on Television Jamaica (TVJ) and WSVN’s Deco Drive. I’m the founder of Kimlayn | Cultured Art + Design Studio.

Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale
Fashion Design

American Airlines Mural Competition, Miami International Airport, Second Place, 2026
ArtServe, Fort Lauderdale, 2023
Fort Lauderdale International Airport, 2023
Chocolate & Art Anniversary, 2020
Alkebulan Cultural Center Pasadena, 2019
RAW Artists DTLA Anniversary, Los Angeles, 2019
RAW Artists Miami, 2016
Collaborative mural, Miami Dade College, 1998