The beauty of being a true artist is that over time, your body of work represents your journey through life. Every sketch, tattoo, or painting becomes a moment suspended in time; snapshots of where we’ve been and more importantly, where we are headed. The career of budding artist Nobu Isobe is one such testament to artistic growth. A scholar of fine art and social commentary, Nobu’s world is a world filled with progress and pain, and his works speak to those unable to see the darker side of humanity. How a 24-year-old entertains such a deep connection to the woes of the world is Nobu’s gift, and how he translates that to canvas is nothing short of extraordinary.

Born in the countryside of Japan, it was Nobu’s emigration to the United States, specifically Los Angeles, which marked his true artistic beginnings. Influenced initially by American music and album art, it was his indecision in choosing a major while at Citrus College that sparked his artistic revolution. “I’d never done any painting in Japan, but when I came here five years ago, I had to declare a major in community college. Art major sounded kind of cool to me, so I took a few basic drawing classes, design classes, and such,” he says. Nobu absorbed this relatively new world like a sponge, soaking up classical paint influences from Renaissance-era masters, and he began to apply those principles to his own contemporary works of art. “In college, it is all progressive, so the higher I got up in the classes, the more I loved what I was doing,” the protégé says with a smile.

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