The Artist
Masami Teraoka
Masami Teraoka (born 1936 in Onomichi, Hiroshima-ken, Japan) is a Japanese-American artist based in Hawaii.
Teraoka’s work integrates reality with the surreal, humour with social commentary, and the historical with the contemporary. Since the 1970s, he has fused traditional Japanese ukiyo-e aesthetics with contemporary Western subjects in his watercolours and prints, exploring cultural clashes, sexuality, politics, and global issues. Teraoka’s work has become more radical since the 1980s, when he began addressing issues like the AIDS epidemic, clergy sex abuse scandals, and nuclear proliferation. Teraoka began working in oil painting on panel inspired by Renaissance religious triptychs; these paintings continue the narrative approach of his earlier Ukiyo-e-inspired pieces while incorporating Western-influenced Baroque elements that reference European ecclesiastical art.
Teraoka earned a B.A. in Aesthetics from Kwansei Gakuin University (1959) before moving to the United States to study at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, where he received his B.F.A. (1964) and M.F.A. (1968). His work is included in over 50 public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London.
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