Layering multiple rich digital elements that create deeply stylized and complex images, Japanese artist Dan Obana explores the possibilities offered by image-making programs. He has termed his style “digital-hanga,” an updating of the Japanese traditional block printing method hanga. His canvases are dominated by deep gold and brown hues, which create an aura of imagination and nostalgia. Accordingly, the urban sceneries he frequently depicts aren’t rooted in specific places so much as the generalized experience of contemporary city life. Complex networks of lines segment space in much the same way street patterns shape cities. Grid systems serve to organize movement and space within Obana’s canvases.

While the city is Obana’s overt setting and preoccupation, his implicit investigation concerns the digital realm. Placing silhouetted characters into computerized landscapes, he ponders the positive and negative impacts of new technologies. In Dan Obana’s pixilated cityscapes, systemic grids serve a double function. They not only guide the viewers’ eyes, but they also direct their thinking