Artist Tomokazu Matzuyama’s sense of place has always been in flux. As a child in the 1980s, he moved from the snowy peaks of Gifu, Japan, to Orange County, California, with his parents, who were on a mission to become Christian ministers. He spoke no English, but found common ground with his peers through skateboarding. When he moved back to Gifu a few years later, his Christianity and West Coast influence marked him once again as an outsider.

        This time, he gravitated toward snowboarding, eventually becoming a semi-pro, sponsored rider, launching himself off cliffs and extreme jumps. His burgeoning snowboarding career ended with a broken ankle, but by then another door had cracked open: Brands aligned with Tokyo’s Harajuku scene were asking him to design graphics for snowboards and t-shirts. Before long, he landed in New York to study graphic design at Pratt Institute.

        There, Matsu saw an issue of Architectural Digest for the first time and his cheeks burned. “In Japan, home is a very private space. When I first flipped through the pages of this magazine,” he recalls, “it felt like I was looking at a triple-X full nude — like, this guy’s naked! He’s showing off his house!” An enduring obsession with interiors was born and Matsu began creating works to live within them.

        His maximalist paintings — layered, hyper-saturated, and chaotic in the best way —  draw from Christian and Renaissance iconography, shiki-e paintings, ukiyo-e prints, as well as traces of modern remnants that bring to mind anime, early Nintendo graphics, and Adobe’s crisp digital precision. At first glance, his work has the punch of the Superflat movement, but beneath the polished surfaces lies a deeply personal pursuit: one that negotiates identity, rather than simply representing it. His figures have minimal facial features, imbuing them with a universal feel. Everything is painted by hand, merging traditional Japanese aesthetics with the scale and boldness of contemporary American art. The result? Work as visually dense as a novel, its color exploding off the canvas as an assertion of hope. Unpacking Matsu’s art history and high-culture references is as satisfying as solving a puzzle.

        For the past two decades, the artist has been carving out a space that defies binaries: East versus West, contemporary versus traditional, conceptual versus decorative. Instead of choosing sides, he asks why art — and identity — must always be framed in opposites. His Brooklyn studio echoes this refrain, acting as a creative ecosystem that is home to nearly 30 young artists who Matsu mentors and sponsors, championing their work and collecting their pieces.

        Though he has exhibited internationally for years and has an impressive roster of public art commissions, it seems like Matsu is finally having his moment. Recent notable shows include Mythologiques at the 2024 Venice Biennale and Matzuyama Tomokazu: Fictional Landscape at the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art and Shanghai Powerlong Museum (2023). His work was recently on view at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and his booth at this year’s Frieze Los Angeles art fair was widely regarded as a standout.

        Despite this global success, Matsu has struggled to receive recognition within Japan’s traditional art establishment — until now. Last week, his first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan, Tomokazu Matzuyama: FIRST LAST, opened at Tokyo’s Azabudai Hills Gallery, drawing a crowd of over 1,300. As part of the show, Matsu produced BE@RBRICK figurines and an exclusive run of 50 “Modern Art Flavor” Umaibo corn-puff snacks. He also collaborated with A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE on a limited-edition collection of coats and one-of-a-kind t-shirts, available exclusively at the gallery. More than just merch, the bright, architectural pieces, constructed from images of his paintings, blur the line between art and fashion.

        Matsu’s lush, complex vision of modern identity — one that can’t be reduced to a single origin story, a single influence, or a single place — feels made for this moment of upheaval. He collapses the current overload into a balanced tapestry of reality, one that doesn’t lie. “The only way to stay positive,” he says, “is to have hope for the future.”

The glory of shoulder season in a remote, yet eminently accessible destination can hardly be overstated — as my recent visit to Pendry Park City underscored. Situated a mere half-hour from Utah’s Salt Lake City International Airport, yet blessedly remote feeling, the modernist property combines cozy, well-designed guest rooms with existential views of the craggy Wasatch Mountains and ski-in, ski-out access.

        When the temperatures trend downwards, it’s a world-class slope day (the city is slated to host several of the events in the 2034 Olympics). Cap your runs with après-ski in front of the lobby fire with a s’mores kit, followed by a well-deserved dinner at Kita, the hotel’s Japanese steakhouse. Opt for the ssam platter, which accompanies wood-fired grilled steak with butter lettuce, shiso leaves, sesame turmeric horseradish, and miso ssamjang sauce.

        If spring melt makes for slushy runs, the village firepit and rooftop pool serve up wide, contemplative panoramas of the Rocky Mountains and the hotel’s surroundings: 7,300 acres of breathtaking terrain. Plus, Park City’s historic, charming Main Street is just 10 minutes away. Stop by Kemo Sabe to browse western wear, or pop into the shop’s speakeasy for a cocktail. Park City Mercantile is the place for locally made goods, freshly pressed juices, and sweet treats. But my can’t-miss stop is always Burns Cowboy Shop, which stocks an incredible selection of authentic cowboy hats, boots, and jackets that inevitably convince me to carry the rustic style home, at least for a day or two.

        The enduring beauty of this place, however, is — once the snow definitively melts — the mountains transform into a dynamic outdoor playground for biking, hiking, and fly fishing.

 

… Your third harvest is not in France. It’s in Burgenland, Austria, on a sprawling biodynamic farm. The winemakers are so handsome they seem to charm peaches and sunflowers from the soil with more unfussed ease than most generations-deep farmers.

        Here, you harvest in the dark. The heat is so intense you’re told that the grapes will suffer, wilt, bleed if you pick them in the midday heat. Instead, each morning by 3 a.m. you’re ensconced in vines, harvesting by the shaky beam of a headlamp.

        It’s cool, though not cold — layers are required. But there’s always that threat of impending heat tugging at the corners of the air. Overhead, the dark is interrupted only by a spill of stars so high-wattage they seem like hole punches, portals to somewhere else.

        You’re slow to begin speaking, everyone still percolating, warming to the absolute irrationality of time. But once you find your rhythm, adjust your eyes, you fall into a certain ease of rapport. You don’t trudge your way in. There’s no prologue. It’s as if you’re picking up last night’s dinner conversation precisely where it left off. You hear these little threads and bursts of admission coming at you from all angles, like a sort of holy surround sound.

        And despite the fact that they begin in the dark, all of these exchanges unfurl into light. Sometime around 6 a.m., when the warmth is palpable but not menacing, color tiptoes in — slowly, at first, then motor fast, spilling out across the vines, brushing everyone in a remarkable, liquid copper glaze. While you speak, you grow more fervent — as if, with each new light gradient, there’s something else to peel back.

        You’re hearing these voices, watching these disembodied hands while the sun moves upward, technicolor orb that it is, taking its place between rows of vines as if preparing to deliver a sermon. All the while, you’re thinking to yourself: My God, gossip has never been that color before.

 

Crown Jewels. Arguably one of the world's most luxurious properties, Hôtel de Crillon, a Rosewood Hotel, in Paris is celebrating Easter. I was invited to experience its Butterfly Pâtisserie’s Easter collection by Head of Pastry Matthieu Carlin. The special-edition collection included three praline eggs (pistachio, crunchy almond hazelnut, almond and cocoa), an almond praline and cocoa bean-crumble chocolate bar (one milk, the other dark), and the piece de resistance: a Sicilian pistachio and Ligurian orange-blossom cake. The hotel is also offering the fantastical experience of participating in an Easter egg hunt under its landmarked lobby ceiling. One of the less-reported fun facts about this property is that it served as Marie Antionette’s music school. (She reportedly learned piano scales here.) It was also a location from which you could witness her execution, which took place just outside, in the Place de la Concorde. You can reasonably expect a much less-complicated outcome from your own visit. –Jeremy Malman

 

It’s Electric. The Maserati GranCabrio Folgore (reportedly the only EV convertible in production) recalls a connection to bike rirding: There’s wind and velocity with a deep, captivating thrum that accompanied the crashing of ocean waves during my Monterey test drive. "I expect our customers will drive it in beautiful places, and you want to connect with those places," Klaus Busse, Maserati's Head of Design, told me as we took in the GranCabrio's graceful shape. I spent my final fleeting moments in a dalliance with the car’s precise steering and formidable, grin-inducing acceleration. Harmony gloriously intertwined with electric horsepower. –John Chuldenko

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