Misako OBA

Biography

Visual Artist (Mixed media painting, in which she often incorporates text, encaustic, and oil. Printmaking. Fine art photography). Author of artbooks (Unique artist books and monograph: her text in English and Japanese).  Her art and life story have been featured in many magazines and newspapers in the United States and Japan (The list is available upon request.) 

OBA was born and raised in Japan. Her artworks, including award-winning works, have been internationally exhibited at galleries and art fairs in France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, and throughout the United States. Her creations are held in private, corporate, and museum collections such as in the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris as a part of their national permanent collections, and in the Museum of Encaustic in the United States.

She initially launched her art career specializing in photography, including traditional gelatin silver prints and toning. However, her professional repertoire has since evolved from sole photography to mixed-media painting incorporating encaustic, oil, printmaking, text, and Japanese paper in compositions relevant to each series’ concept. She studied photography and other media in a graduate program in the United States. Also, printmaking and mixed media; in New York. Encaustic; in New York and Seattle. She completed additional studies in France and Japan.

Her art has been honored with awards including first prizes such as in The Pollux Awards/The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards (based in U.K.) in international competitions and funded Artist-in-Residency programs in the United States. OBA has presented artist talks and lectures to MFA students and the general public internationally, including at the State University in New York and Yong-In University in South Korea.

OBA is a late starter in the art field. As a child, she had no interest in visual art. Her early career was in broadcasting as newscaster and reporter in Japan and New York, and in print media as an editor and photographer. Her responsibility involved film photo direction which first gave her an appreciation of the power of visual imagery.

Before she began her art career, she experienced personal tragedies, including the loss of her child, followed by her own near-death experience. A year later, another incident caused her to develop double vision when looking up with both eyes. The failure of a vision-recovery surgery further damaged a nerve in her cheek, resulting in chronic pain in her right cheek. That same year, she endured many other disastrous experiences.

Despite these challenges, OBA recovered emotionally rather quickly. The experiences became one of the reasons for her to switch her focus and career from journalism to art in positive ways.

Besides gallery exhibitions, she also enjoy working for commissions. Her commission work would be based on her style, however, she works well together with the clients, collectors, and collaborators. Her art has been used for the cover of books and music albums. She has lived in many places from Tokyo, New York, and Paris to mid-sized and rural areas in the United States and Japan, and traveled in many areas of Europe and Asia. It gave her an understanding of the diverse cultures, different ways of thinking, and local communities by experience. This seems to influence her art.

Artbook publications include the monograph “PACTUM” (2011), “Gift of Loss” (2011), “FAUSTUS” (2014), and handcrafted artist books “Beyond Time Waka Poem” (2021), “Cry For Love” (2020-2023), “Blue – Look UP! What Do You See…?” (2024).