The mission of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout LA County. We fulfill our mission by providing services and support in areas including grants and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations; professional development opportunities; commissioning civic artworks and managing the County’s civic art collection; implementing countywide arts education initiatives; research and evaluation; career pathways in the creative economy; free community programs; and cross sector creative strategies that address civic issues. This work is framed by the County’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and a longstanding commitment to fostering access to the arts.
The Los Angeles General Medical Center has a long and storied history of providing health and medical services for greater Los Angeles. The Los Angeles General Medical Center Child Care Center is located directly west of the iconic General Hospital at the center of the Los Angeles General Medical Center in Boyle Heights. The Child Care Center, designed around a courtyard shaded by a 100-year-old, protected oak tree, provides a nurturing and secured environment for children from 6 months old through pre-K. In this artwork, called On the Same Team, the artist expresses the community’s desire for the bond of trust when individuals can rely on each other towards a communal effort. Hem states that he used the metaphor of group jump rope to convey this message in the most inclusive way. In his experience, group jump rope is a game with no rivalry or competitiveness, where children collaborate to create a joint rhythm. Hem purposely created a scene of diverse children at play in a fantastical landscape familiar to Boyle Heights; the mural depicts the bandstand and hotel turret from nearby Mariachi Plaza transported to a surreal waterscape, which reflects mounds of cotton-candy clouds. Hem explains his goal is to evoke wonder and fantasy, similar to how he felt as a child seeing the murals in his neighborhood. The artwork is made of translucent smalti glass tiles, hand-crafted, and fabricated by master mosaicists at Miotto Mosaic Art Studios.
About the Artist:
Raised as the child of Cambodian immigrants in Los Angeles, Andrew Hem’s illustrative paintings bridge disparate aesthetic influences as well as cultural touchstones and sensibilities. Since earning a BFA from Art Center College of Design illustration, Hem has painted murals on six continents and exhibited in venues ranging from the Oakland Museum of California to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. This is his first permanent mural.
To learn more : https://www.andrewhem.com
