Born and raised in Japan (b. 1936), where he earned a BA in aesthetics at Kwanesi Gakuin University in Kobe, Masami Teraoka adopted the United States as his home in 1964. After receiving BA and MFA degrees at Otis Art Institute, Teraoka settled in Los Angeles, a city gripped by hedonism and consumerism, and bounded by beautiful Pacific beaches. Using a pop sensibility and a wicked sense of humor, Teraoka adapted the visual world of Japanese prints to comment on East/ West encounters, e.g., his McDonalds Hamburgers Invading Japan series (1970s). The artist moved to Hawaii in 1980. Hanauma Bay, near his eastern Oahu studio, is the setting for grand wave paintings and scenes of erotic encounters between octopi and tattooed pearl divers. The AIDS series, beginning in 1987, introduced a darker mood in imagery adapting Kabuki ghost tales. After an extended trip to Europe in 1992, Teraoka shifted to densely figured, large-scale allegories adapting European art historical models, including Hieronymous Bosch’s visions of hell. These huge morality tales take on the rapacious media, political and church scandals, impacts of biotechnology, and the Internet on human society and other troubling issues.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

• 2000–2001: Masami Teraoka: Tower of Babel, multiple venues.
• 1997–1999: Masami Teraoka: From Tradition to Technology— The Floating World Comes of Age, travels
• 1996: Paintings by Masami Teraoka, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
• 1990–1991: Masami Teraoka, multiple venues
• 1988–1989: Waves and Plagues: The Art of Masami Teraoka, multiple venues
• 1987: Masami Teraoka: American Kabuki/Oishiiwa, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu
• 1979: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, travels