Fearless.

Free from fear. Brave. Having or showing courage. Making a fine show. Excellent. Splendid.

There’s the dictionary definition of what that word means. There’s the demolition of opposing defenses, rims and superstardom that LeBron James enacts on a game-to-game basis.
And then there’s what Tomokazu Matsuyama did with the New York Artist Series Air Max LeBron VII.

It starts with an image of LeBron shouting in the heat of a game. Then it ventures into brainstorming - Tomokazu's bright idea to find the perfect creative outlet that could capture everything from LeBron's relationships with his family and friends to his unlimited will to continually grow and reinvent himself on the court.

Fearless.

It refuses to just be a word - or a literal interpretation. So Tomokazu focused heavily on a "reincarnation" design theme.

Ironically - because after all, we’re talking about a player whose statistics barely even begin to do the talking - it became a number system.

0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

"0" and "1" relate to birth and reincarnation in the Japanese Buddhist tradition; "4" is traditionally symbolic of the world "perish." Thin lines connect the numbers in between, which come to represent the orders and chaos of life.

Kinda like that state of organized supremacy LeBron drops on opposing teams through his connection with teammates and the reinvention of his craft of a nightly basis.

This one-of-a-kind design has more than 700 Swarovski crystals individually affixed to the shoes. Each one represents the Asian philosophy "Gyokuseki-Konko," implying that life is an amalgamation of rocks and jewels. They also capture the aesthetic of eternity and the minimal beauty of the reincarnation concept.

Tomokazu is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City. Influenced by everything from post-war contemporary art to pop culture, he exhibits his work internationally, showing in galleries and institutions from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Having spent his youth between Japan and America, Tomokazu features both the conscious and introspective response to tensions of bi-cultural experiences.

The result is exemplified prominently in the style and subject matter of his paintings.

And the New York Artist Series Air Max LeBron VII was simply his latest blank canvas.

"Life is filled with challenges and difficulties," he said, adding, "To overcome such hardships and to become 'Fearless' it is important to be able to count on the support of friends, family, teammates and loved ones. Those connections give us strength to move ahead into life's chaos without fear."

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