Kellen Hatanaka explores identity, belonging, and contemporary culture through vibrant figurative paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. His practice draws on Japanese Canadian history, sport, and everyday life, rendered with emotional specificity and a bold visual language.

His 2026 print edition with Smokestack, Marathon, begins with two base figures, one with darker brown skin and one with a lighter tanned complexion, and expands through hand embellishment into a collection of 28 distinct individuals. Hatanaka was interested in how much variation could emerge from a consistent starting point, using small deliberate changes in colour, jersey, and detail to see how far a single image could stretch while remaining coherent as a series. The edition sits at the intersection of print and painting, the collective and the singular, the assumed and the actual.