Joey Terrill

Remembrance, 1989, printed 2026

38’4”' x 16' 8"
Maryanne and Irwin Pfister - Wall Sponsors

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego 700 Prospect Street

Joey Terrill’s mural, Remembrance, is a self-portrait of the artist and his then-partner Robert Ward set within a lush garden of cacti and succulents. For Terrill, the picture’s botanical setting is at once beautiful and threatening, evoking the complex sexual politics and broader cultural climate of the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS crisis. While many of the artist's friends were becoming ill and dying, Ward, who was nine years younger, had not yet experienced that loss within his own generation and offered Terrill steadfast support throughout those years of mourning. Each figure carries a bouquet of long-stemmed gladiolas and birds-of-paradise, the official flower of the City of Los Angeles, which firmly grounds the scene in Southern California.

Terrill, at left, wears a shirt designed by his friend Arnubal ("Arnie") Araica, a fashion designer from El Salvador whose clothing was sold on Melrose Avenue during the 1980s. Extending the work's circle of remembrance beyond the two central figures, Remembrance also pays tribute to Araica, who later died of AIDS. Through the dense succulent leaves, a small patch of blue sky is visible above Terrill’s shoulder, suggesting the possibility of hope and healing beyond loss. In this way, Remembrance transforms lived experience into a poignant reflection on a generation shaped by love, community, and the enduring impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Originally created in 1989, Remembrance is presented here as a temporary public installation, allowing Terrill’s painting to be experienced outdoors on an architectural scale. As a collaboration between Murals of La Jolla and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), the large-scale printed mural invites new audiences to engage with its themes of love, loss, remembrance, and resilience. The original artwork remains in the collection of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Spanning mediums of zine-making, performance, printmaking, collage, and painting, Terrill’s practice engages his lived experiences within intersecting queer, Chicano, and artistic communities. Born in Los Angeles, he attended Immaculate Heart College and California State University. Terrill’s wide-ranging practice has consistently explored themes of identity, community, and activism, particularly in response to the social and political realities of the AIDS crisis and queer life in Los Angeles.

Terrill’s work has been widely exhibited including in group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; The Contemporary Austin; Orange County Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; MCASD; the Hammer Museum; Brooklyn Museum; Palm Springs Art Museum; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work is featured in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; El Museo del Barrio, New York; the Hammer Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MCASD; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Orange County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in Los Angeles.