nonohara

nonohara (埜々原) is a concept artist, illustrator and independent game developer based in Japan. He grew up in Nagano Prefecture, trained in mechanical engineering and worked as an engineer for an automotive company before studying graphic design at an evening vocational school and moving into the games industry as a background illustrator, art director and concept artist. He has worked independently since 2021 under the name Nonohara Works.

In 2019 he began posting the series of imagined buildings he tags #moe-kenchiku (萌え建築): half-timbered towns on cliffs, fishermen's houses on the water, a pizzeria in a canyon, a herb shop in a forest city. The pictures combine bright colour and soft brushwork with an engineer's concern that each structure could stand, and he prefers whole districts to single buildings so that the viewer can imagine what lies beyond the frame. The series was first self-published as Wokashi na Kenchiku and then collected by X-Knowledge in 2024 as Wokashi na Tatemono Tanbouki. Client work includes the key visual for Zukan Museum Ginza, illustrations for the architecture magazine Kenchiku Chishiki, concept art for games and paper-craft design.

Since October 2021 he has been developing Calme (断崖のカルム), an exploration adventure set in a cliff-side town above a sea of cloud, with the small team DOUKUTSU PENGUIN CLUB; the project joined the iGi indie game incubator and has been shown at BitSummit. His first solo exhibition was held in Tokyo in 2023. nonohara's work is presented in Europe by Tokiol.

Selected exhibitions

2023 Solo exhibition, 9DAYS GALLERY, Shibuya, Tokyo

Publications

Nonohara Sakuhinshu: Wokashi na Tatemono Tanbouki, X-Knowledge, 2024