Ron Terada
Ron Terada (b. 1969, Vancouver; lives/works: Vancouver) has developed a wide-ranging conceptual art practice over three decades that frequently makes use of textual appropriation to explore the circulation and consumption of information in popular, journalistic, and artistic contexts. Since 1993, Terada has produced numerous series of text paintings, reproducing the texts of commercial gallery ads, entire chapters of artist Jack Goldstein’s biography, and clickbait Trump-era headlines. For these works, he selects fonts for their canny or critical relationships to the chosen content, then utilizes the techniques of the sign industry to painstakingly execute his paintings.
Terada’s significant solo exhibitions include The Power Plant, Toronto (2023); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2018); Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2011); Hayward Gallery Project Space, London, UK; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK (2010); and Ikon Eastside, Birmingham (2006). Recent group exhibitions include the Vancouver Art Gallery (2021, 2017); Kunstverein in Hamburg (2019); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2017); Kunsthalle Wien (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2013); 4th Guangzhou Triennial (2012); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2012); and Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2010, 2009). In 2006, he was awarded the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award, Visual Art, from the Canada Council for the Arts, and in 2004, he won the VIVA Award, Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts, Vancouver.