In today’s futuristic Internet age, art has gone global. Some of the most exciting contemporary art happening right now is coming from Japan—where hyper-cool artists are merging old and new forms, obliterating surfaces, painting superflat, and pushing the limits of technology. Anime and manga influences mingle with Edo-period techniques; cyber-geishas dance through space and reckon with our possible dystopian futures. On the very cutting edge of art, media, and tech, here are 10 Japanese Visual Artists Changing the Game in 2015.
Takehiro Tobinaga
Tobinaga’s deft hand shows in his intricate pencil drawings, which pop with surprising details and masterful, dense composition. In a digital world Tobinaga has not forgotten how to draw—it’s the foundation of his practice. Melding pop culture with art history and fashion, Tobinaga mixes influences, leading to an art style entirely his own. Watch the third episode of Complex Summer Vacation in which our team travelled to one of Japan’s most remote forests to chronicle Tobinaga’s process—radically fusing Japan’s artistic legacy and natural beauty with the rapid accessibility of the Creative Cloud.