Catharine Clark Gallery presents a special exhibition of select works by Masami Teraoka from private collections, on view July 27 – September 2, 2017. Featuring over 40 works from 1972 – 2002, the exhibition presents a stunning survey of major works from some of Teraoka’s most important series, including selections from Venice Nude Beach, New Views of Mt.

Fuji, McDonald’s Hamburgers Invading Japan and the AIDS Series, among others.

Highlights from the presentation include AIDS Series/Makiki Heights Disaster (1988), an outstanding folding screen with mounted watercolor panels that depict an overgrown forest people with ukiyo-e style figures combatting a monstrous serpent and frog, fantastic and insidious creatues that represent agents of infection in a startling visual narrative about disease and its various means of transmission. The screen embodies Teraoka’s early commitment to addressing the subject of AIDS in art, as well as an introduction to the later AIDS Series.

Other standouts include New Views of Mt. Fuji/La Brea Tar Pits (1974), an early watercolor that references Hokusai’s historic woodblock series Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji (1830 – 1832) but with a sly clash of landscapes, as mammoths struggle to crawl through Los Angeles’ ecological landmark La Brea Tar Pits, while Japan’s Mt. Fuji towers over the horizon. Los Angeles Ghost Tales/Sushi Assortment (1979), in contrast, depicts a figure in an intricately detailed kimono eating sushi from a lacquered box, the beautiful patterns of the garment a stark counterpoint to the ghostly figure’s blue pallor, a side effect of poisoned fish from contaminated waters.