Exhibition - Hiromi Isobe: Can I See?

MoCA Arlington is pleased to present Can I See?, a solo exhibition by MFA Candidate Hiromi Isobe, on view in the Jenkins Community Gallery.

In Can I See?, artist Hiromi Isobe works across media including painting, mixed media, fiber and sculpture to give form to the invisible systems that shape our world. Charting Isobe’s interest in scientific study, spirituality and existential queries, Can I See? is both a question and a practice: an ongoing search for understanding that offers answers through the act of creation.

Isobe’s work embraces uncertainty as a space for discovery. Rather than seeking clear answers, Isobe approaches artmaking as an inquiry, guided by her innate sense of wonder and sensitivity. Using the recurring motif of the circle, layered and highly tactile materials, and fancifully imagined characters, Isobe poetically visualizes emotional states and the threads that connect individuals to the cosmos.

A key sculptural element of the exhibition, My World, features hand-crafted characters and forms that inhabit a fictional realm. There, Isobe’s characters enact an allegorical narrative about interconnectedness and individuality. By weaving together whimsical figures with organic structures, My World combines playfulness and complexity, exploring ideas about belonging, memory, and the ways we construct meaning.

In its quest to express the ineffable, Can I See? is both a question and an invitation: to pause, reflect, and imagine what lies beyond the visible.

Hiromi Isobe (born 1964, Osaka, Japan) is an artist and art educator. Isobe had a career in finance for five years in Tokyo, Japan before moving to the United States, where she began teaching Studio Arts at Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, Virginia, a position she has now held for twenty-one years. Isobe is an MFA Painting Candidate through The Savannah College of Art and Design, with an anticipated graduation in May of 2026. Can I See? is Isobe’s first solo exhibition.