Weston Teruya (b. 1977, Honolulu) is an artist and arts policy advocate. Alongside his studio practice, he is an appointed member of the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission, where he chairs the grants committee and serves on the policy committee. He worked for the Community Investments program (formerly Cultural Equity Grants) of the San Francisco Arts Commission for eight years. He has been a grant panelist and juror for many institutions, including the Center for Cultural Innovation, Headlands Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure, and California College of the Arts. Teruya has curated exhibitions for Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco; and the Berkeley Art Center, and he has written for Hyphen magazine. He is one of the core members of the Related Tactics collective, a group of artists, writers, curators, and educators of color creating projects and opportunities at the intersection of race and culture.
Teurya has had solo exhibitions at Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland (2011), Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco (2009, 2006), and Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco (2008). He has exhibited in group shows at the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland (2015), Project Space Gallery, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California (2015), Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco State University (2015), Radiator Gallery, Long Island City, New York (2015), Longhouse Projects and the New York City Fire Museum, New York (2014), Southern Exposure, San Francisco (2013), Palo Alto Art Center (2012), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2011), Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2011), Hiromi Yoshii Gallery, Tokyo (2011), Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek (2011), Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco (2010, 2007, 2006), Fivepoints Arthouse, San Francisco (2010), Oliver Art Center, California College of the Arts, Oakland (2009), the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California (2009), Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco (2008), Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California (2008), BLK/MRKT, Los Angeles (2007), and Gatehouse Gallery, di Rosa Preserve, Napa (2007), among others. Teruya was one of the inaugural Art+Practice+Ideas artists in residence at Mills College (2015), a recipient of the Investing in Artists Grant (Artistic Innovation category), Center for Cultural Innovation, California (2014), an Irvine Fellow at the Lucas Artist Residency of Montalvo Arts Center (2010), a SECA Art Award finalist (2010), and a recipient of the Artadia Award (2009). Teruya holds an MFA in painting and drawing and an MA in visual and critical studies from California College of the Arts (2007) and a BA in studio art from Pomona College (1999). He lives and works in Berkeley.
