Polish digital artist and illustrator Mateusz Urbanowicz has released a series of beautiful watercolor illustrations for some of the local storefronts of the Japanese capital city Tokyo. The illustrator’s captivating art pieces are quite unique for reflecting the simple ordinary architecture of the city instead of the mainstream futuristic character it has become widely known for. His illustrations feature meat shops, hair salon, a woodblock print store, a Sake shop, and a couple of restaurants.
“When I moved to Tokyo, more than 3 years ago I was really surprised that upon my walks I encountered so many shops still in business in really old buildings. Differently, to Kobe, where the earthquake wiped out a lot of these old downtown houses and shops, in Tokyo, they still survive,” says Mateusz Urbanowicz on his Tokyo Storefront Series. ”I chose the best reference pictures from the ones I took during my explorations and decided to make an illustration series of old Tokyo storefronts.”
Mateusz was originally an electronic engineering student but he, later, shifted to arts. He studied Computer Graphics in Poland, then he moved to Japan to study animation and comics. He has been working as a background artist and animation creator for Tokyo-based animation studio Comix Wave Films since 2013. However, professional work has not kept him from practicing arts as a hobby, as seen in his Tokyo Storefront Series.
