The painting Tempérance debuted in A Counterfeit Gift Wrapped in Fire, Devan Shimoyama's second solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago. The painting portrays Shimoyama as a translucent, blue angel. Like the tarot card of the same name, the painting shows a figure pouring liquid from one container into another. Traditionally, it is assumed a cup of water is diluting a cup of wine—a reference to the virtue of restraint. The cup in Shimoyama’s painting is overflowing, accumulating into a lake at his feet, trading the poison of personal dilution for the virtue of natural abundance.

The paintings and sculptures in A Counterfeit Gift Wrapped in Fire examine cultural representations related to transformation. The result of a long period of self-reflection for Shimoyama, the work materially alludes to an internal dialog he has been wrangling with concerning the difference between superficial and true change—a discrepancy noticeable at all levels, from the societal, to individual interactions in which we perform social niceties for each other rather than admit the truth about how we are doing.

Many works in A Counterfeit Gift Wrapped in Fire contain visual references to tarot cards, which for Shimoyama relate to how mysticisms can help people adapt to difficult or tumultuous times.