Tale of 1000 Condoms/Geisha and Skeleton

In my early paintings I used watercolor on paper to mimic woodblock prints. But the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic seemed to demand large-scale paintings.  – Masami Teraoka 

Created before antiretroviral treatments for HIV became available, Tale of 1000 Condoms/Geisha and Skeleton represents a geisha's "uncontrollable fear" of contracting the virus. She anxiously rips open a condom as she awaits her evening clients. A former customer who has died of AIDS-related illness returns in the form of a skeleton. Their conversation is inscribed in Japanese on the canvas:

Geisha: Oh my god, it's you that came back?

Skeleton: Yes, it's me again, I took the subway to get here. I felt bad because everybody was afraid of me.

The work is part of a series Masami Teraoka began in 1986 responding to the plague of AIDS. To match the power and impact of the crisis at that time, he worked on a larger scale than ever before. Mimicking the style of Japanese ukiyo-e, or "floating world," woodblock prints, Teraoka's paintings depict scenes of terror, struggle, and loss in a world menaced by a deadly disease.