Masami Teraoka. Watercolor to Screenplay

Portrait of Masami Teraoka, ca. 1980.

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From a young age, painting was the central focus of Masami Teraoka’s life. He was born in Onomichi, Japan, in 1936 and studied watercolor under a local artist. Recognizing his talent, Teraoka’s parents bought him whatever art supplies they could afford and encouraged him to go to art school. He graduated in 1959 with a BA in aesthetics from Kwansei Gakuin University in Hyogo, Japan, where he not only painted but also studied theater and literature. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961, where he spent seven years at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, earning a BFA in 1964 followed by an MFA in 1968. But amid the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, he was disappointed in contemporary art, which seemed to be missing the amorous sensuality and erotic freedom expressed in popular culture;¹ to Teraoka the conventions of Minimalism, which could been seen in the fiberglass resin sculptures he made at Otis, were too austere. As he shifted to working with the figure in a narrative style, Hollywood and his earlier drama studies influenced his style. “In my mind,” he explained, “I write my own visual script, like for a Hollywood movie.”²