Catharine Clark Gallery makes its debut presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach with a Survey sector presentation of historic and recent work by American artist Masami Teraoka (b. 1936, Japan).
Masami Teraoka’s work integrates reality with the surreal, humor with social commentary, and the historical with the contemporary. His early watercolors often focus on the cultural meeting of East and West, evident in series that began in the 1970s such as “McDonald’s Hamburgers Invading Japan,” “New Views of Mt. Fuji,” and “31 Flavors Invading Japan.” The works on paper from this period reflect the impact of economic and cultural globalization.
While sexuality is a recurring subject in his work, his representation of sex shifted from positive depictions of free-love in the 1970s and early 1980s to concern for the spread of HIV in his work of the mid-1980s. The medium during this “AIDS Series” period shifted from watercolor on paper to watercolor on canvas, enabling him to work at a large scale to address the enormity of the social and health crisis impacting affected communities.
Catharine Clark Gallery’s presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach offers a rare opportunity to see watercolors, drawings, and multiples from Teraoka’s “AIDS Series,” in conversation with a selection of watercolors, multiples, and studies from projects ranging from 1974 to the present day.
