Tomokazu Matsuyama Japan, b. 1976

This painting by Tomokazu Matsuyama embodies the artist’s intercultural and inter-temporal aesthetic vision, which blends visual references from around the globe and throughout time. The two figures—borrowed from the pages of a fashion magazine and rendered without noses to convey a sense of anonymity and ubiquity—pass each other in a mystical, floral landscape. The background of this so-called natural world is wallpapered with a Baroque style typical of open source patterns available on the internet. The patterns on the figures’ clothes echo a range of styles referencing everything from Edo period screens to mid-20th century abstract visual positions. The impossible forest is inhabited by flora and fauna native to various locales. One figure carries a Rite Aid bag; the other carries a Target bag; while a third plastic bag sits orphaned on the ground. The dozens of layers of paint on the surface of the painting echo the dozens of conceptual layers evident in the picture’s content. Matsuyama is bringing this wide universe of references together in order to create an image that is accessible to today’s nomadic diaspora, a community of wandering people trying to navigate a world of contrasting cultural and visual content. The image is intercultural and transnational; referencing history, and yet unmistakably contemporary; it invites as many people in as possible.