
Sai Clayton
Episode 51 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Sai Clayton explores the Asian biracial experience and womanhood in her art.
Working with a variety of media, Sai explores the Asian biracial experience and womanhood in her art. Her work transcends stereotypes and invites the viewer to consider that identities can be beautifully blended, rather than compartmentalized. She is the curatorial director at COOP Gallery, and was the 2021-2022 Curatorial Fellow at the Frist Museum of Art.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Arts Break is a local public television program presented by WNPT

Sai Clayton
Episode 51 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Working with a variety of media, Sai explores the Asian biracial experience and womanhood in her art. Her work transcends stereotypes and invites the viewer to consider that identities can be beautifully blended, rather than compartmentalized. She is the curatorial director at COOP Gallery, and was the 2021-2022 Curatorial Fellow at the Frist Museum of Art.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Arts Break
Arts Break is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(mellow music) - For me, I think being Japanese American has always been central to how I navigate the world.
I feel like that's such a deep question of how my ancestral roots impact me today.
(mellow music) I think it's difficult for people to imagine two worlds coming together within a person and seeing you for the entirety of the person that you are.
That is everything in my work.
I am really interested in showing how these two cultures can kind of combine in this weird visual language that I've started to play with.
(mellow music) There are a lot of expectations of any race.
I am interested in pushing back against that, but in a way that is more framed as self-confidence.
(mellow music) I've been using a lot of raw canvas that I will actually wash and dry, and then I'm able to dilute my paints and soak them in in layers, which I feel like is reminiscent of Japanese watercolors and Sumi ink.
I'm particularly interested in noh mask of the young, beautiful woman, which is from a traditional Japanese performance, and I've used this to represent the surface level view of race and the expectation of Asian woman in particular.
(mellow music) I think the humor is that I am framing a Japanese historical face on this macho, masculine, American body.
I think what has been the most challenging or interesting about my biracial identity and experience is this binary way that the world wants to view you in terms of race and culture, and that you have to be one thing or another when in reality I feel like I've lived a very rich combination of both cultures.
(mellow music)
Support for PBS provided by:
Arts Break is a local public television program presented by WNPT