Clement Hanami

Clement Hanami is a Japanese-American artist. He grew up in the predominantly Hispanic Los Angeles, California suburb of East Los Angeles, just outside downtown. His mother is a hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivor. His father was a World War II evacuee.

He received his M.F.A. from the University of California Los Angeles in Studio Art with a specialization in New Genres. At UCLA, his mentor was Paul McCarthy and he worked alongside artists like Jason Rhoades, Robert Billings, Steve Hurd, and Martin Kersels. His work has been exhibited in California and New York. He co-managed the collaborative Arts partnership project Finding Family Stories and co-designed the exhibit Common Ground: The Heart of Community with ADOBE LA. His works have been seen in The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Armory Center for the Arts, John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, California Museum of Photography, Long Beach Museum of Art, AFI National Video Festival, Santa Monica Museum of Art, KCET Independent Eye, Westwind Magazine, and Show-Mag Gallery.

Clement is currently the Art Director at the Japanese American National Museum and primarily responsible for the design, installation, fabrication and maintenance of the Museum's major exhibits, and New Genres teacher at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He was also a Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of Culver City from 2004 to 2010. He received a Getty Visual Arts Fellowship in 2000 and a COLA Artist Award in 2007 given by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

In 2006 he participated in "Tigers and Jaguars: L.A.'s Asian-Latino Art Phenomenon" at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles.

In 2010, his first public art piece, Through the Looking Glass or Traveling at the Speed of Light (Rail), was completed as part of the Metro Goldline's East Side Extension. This piece is located at the East LA Civic Center station in East Los Angeles. In 2013 he participated in a virtual exhibition entitled Art Intersections, a Smithsonian Asian-Latino Pop Up Museum by the Smithsonian APA Center. In 2015 he participated in an Artist Project at the Museum of Man at Balboa Park in San Diego. Using an object from the museums vast collection, he created the large scale installation The Allegory of Moby Dick or The Oceanic Feeling of Whiteness that was displayed in the museum's main hall.

On May 28th and 29th of 2016, his work will be part of the Smithsonian APA Center exhibition Crosslines: A Culture Lab on Intersectionality at the Arts and Industries Building in Washington D.C.