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YASUJI PAUL HAMANAKA
Discipline: mixed media/sculpture
Education: MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

What inspired you to start working in this medium?

I was 19, studying at a university to become an international company employee. I imagined myself traveling around the globe. But one night, everything changed. I was looking at a white wall of my apartment. Suddenly, my right arm started moving, wanting to paint something on that white wall. I ran out to an art store and bought a brush and 2 oil colors, yellow and red. I don't know why. I painted a portrait of a Caucasian woman who I had never met. 

Satisfied afterward, I felt that was my calling. I switched my major to fine art. I started off oil painting and now make art in any media: acrylic, mixed-media, print, sculpture, video, installation and assemblage.  

What kind of art are you currently working on?

Recently, I've been interested in one of the Buddhist doctrines: Nothing stays as is. At the same time, I apply the concept of Yin and Yang in the process. I like to juxtapose or combine beauty and ugliness, fragility and sternness, and eternity and impermanence. 

One day, I found a concrete wall broken and showing the rotten iron rod inside. It felt so beautiful. So, I made the broken sculptural wall with foam rubber and then painted some human figures on the fake concrete surface. Figures are scratched or torn apart by the cracks or furrows here and there. Iron rods are twisted or bent to show the force of destruction. Portraits on the surface are beautiful in order to have the contrast. 

What have you been up to recently?

My work had been shown in the 100th Anniversary Juried Exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum. At the same time, other work had been displayed at the Abington Art Center Juried Show, which received an award. 

What inspires you?

I'd say there are three things that inspire me. 

First: a beautiful human face. Whenever I see a beautiful face, I feel obligated to paint. The beautiful face to me has such qualities -- dignity, grace and indescribable naturalness. Unfortunately, I don't find it often. 

Second: powerful natural phenomena with age or history. Beauty in nature to me has such Wabi-Sabi qualities: imperfection, aged naturalness and organic reality. 

Third: scientific reality. It has the beauty of truth like Yin and Yang, multiple dimensional universe and incomprehensible mysteries.

Why do you make art?

The question reminds me of another similar one addressed to a mountain climber: Why do you climb the mountain? The answer was "because the mountain is there." But, to tell you the truth, I quit making art twice intentionally in the past because 

I couldn't find the reason. When I thought about why I made art, I got in trouble because I couldn't find any reasonable answers. 

So, why do I make art now or have restarted doing it? It's because my arm and hands move when I find the beauty in my surroundings. It's not thinking. It's just the beauty is there.

What do you wish people will see or get out of your work?

I once saw a piece by Picasso and was struck by a mysterious energy. When I left there, I noticed it almost one hour had passed. If people stay looking at my art for more than one hour feeling indescribable, beautiful, mysterious, powerful and real at the same time, that would be the moment of my dream-come-true. In other words, I wish people to be moved and touched by my art.