Clinton Sana, 2018 Presidential Scholar
Clinton Sana was awarded the College of Fine and Performing Arts Presidential Scholar Award for 2018. The award honors the highest achievements of our students. President Karen W. Morse instituted the Presidential Scholars Award to honor graduates for their exceptional scholarship and service to the university and community. Learn more about the award.
His creative scholarship for the Art Studio Bachelor of Fine Arts is intellectually rich, beautifully crafted, and directly related to his multicultural heritage as indigenous Chamorro. The work layers conversations with his grandmother with the story of her detention in a concentration camp and with the colonial history of Guam. Clint has spent years working with developmentally disabled individuals and with children in martial arts programs. In his life and his creative work Clint honors relationship and the practice of deep listening.
Clint Sana Artist Statement
The images I create represent the blurring of cultural identity viewed through a lens that’s been distorted and altered by the years and the physical distance between myself and my home, Guahan. The process of creating drawings and paintings provides a path to excavate the experiences and history of Chamorros living on Guam and the continental US.
The subject matter I focus on is based on the Chamorro experience in our society. These experiences, through the context of Guam’s Spanish, Japanese, and American colonial past weaving through the island’s contemporary society, provides the proa in which to sail these troubled waters. I work with various drawing materials rendering collages on surfaces based on found photos and personal photos rendered with papaya soap, graphite, acrylic, and oil paint to create a narrative that explores the relationship between Guam and it’s colonial history