David Robinson: An Exhibition of Limited-Edition Iris Prints -- Windjammer Gallery -- Until June 20 They're pretty, popular and frequently complex -- but are they art? Technically and practically, some would say that they are, while others -- cultural and artistic snobs likely -- wouldn't. In the same way that the art world has debated the artistic legitimacy of such media as photography or the infamous silk-screen portraits of Andy Warhol, the "digital designs'' of Bermudian-born artist-designer David Robinson are also testing the artistic limits, defying simple and comfortable categorisation and melding art and technology perhaps too closely for some.

In the course of creating his prints -- called Iris prints in this case after the brand of software he uses -- Mr. Robinson, who recently opened his own art gallery in the historic Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego, combines the traditional photographic process with a state-of-the-art painting and printing technique that was pioneered by, of all people, rock star Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

During this process, an image that Mr. Robinson has created by hand on a computer screen is transferred by the computer into digital data which is then printed on an Ink Jet printer. The printer, which uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink, can effectively form up to 16 million colours (each of which can appear in an astounding 512 chromatic varieties). The colours are then transferred onto a sheet of paper -- a hand-mounted sheet of fine art paper, in the case of Mr. Robinson -- through four precision nozzles that emit a fine spray of ink or two million droplets of ink per second. The process, which can reproduce the original photographic painting in the finest detail and to the highest degree of resolution, doesn't, in Mr. Robinson's view, give him any unfair advantage over the traditional painter (except perhaps that he can erase or go over any unwanted colour in a speedier fashion than an old-style artisan).

He still, Mr. Robinson says, has to create the original image by hand and blend the colours himself. And what colours, in the end, they are.

After all is said and done, there is no denying the inherent beauty of the artist's finished products, which can range in style from Impressionist to Pop but which each have a common clarity, a uniform intensity, of hue. In his three studies of the same boat from different angles, for instance, Mr.

Robinson has created an otherworldly array of colours and tints, incorporating a hot pink that is so hot it sizzles, a blue so blue that it seems Heaven-touched.

In his other fine works -- "Concert in Victoria Park,'' say, or "Challenger and Echo 1'' -- the artist has also evoked the uniquely soft brush strokes of the Impressionist masters or the almost transparent splotches of a traditional watercolourist.

A personal favourite of this reviewer, moreover, is "Blue Shutter,'' a strikingly Warholian portrait of the title fixture against a background of bright orange-yellow. "St. Georges Gate,'' which hangs nearby, is equally appealing in its overexposed starkness, equally Pop in its sensibility.

Indeed, Mr. Robinson's prints share many if not all of the qualities of traditional works of art: a strong and serious artistic sensibility, a painterly attention to detail, an inherent attractiveness. So why, then, is there such an ambivalence towards them? No doubt because, like all of the creative techniques that preceded it were at one time, digital data art is new, and therefore untested. But if Mr. Robinson's work and method of operation are any indication -- he makes limited editions of his work and, like photographers with their negatives, controls its reproduction -- this particular technique will likely go through the tests of time and criticism.

And, no doubt, survive.

DANNY SINOPOLI `RIDDELLS BAY' -- By David Robinson. His digital data art shares many if not all of the qualities of traditional works of art.