Biography
Isaac Nicholas Caruso was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1988. He was raised in the Valley of the Sun and attended Thunderbird High School. It was there he discovered a passion for the visual arts and decided to pursue a degree in Graphic Design. During his first year of college, his paintings were exhibited at the S. Dillon Ripley Center of the Smithsonian through the VSA Arts Driven Competition, where he received the Award of Excellence. This experience solidified his resolve to become a professional public artist and designer.
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Caruso relocated to Flagstaff to attend the School of Visual Communication at Northern Arizona University. He accepted the position of Creative Director at the Lumberjack Newspaper to help pay for his education.
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After graduating with his BFA, Caruso launched his mural career, which soon took him around the world, beginning with his first residency in Montevideo, Uruguay. He led a community initiative to paint murals throughout the city’s historical quarter, instructing residents despite speaking limited Spanish. This experience cemented his belief in visual communication as a universal language, a theme that continues to define his work.
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In 2017, he won a grant from the Desert Botanical Garden and the National Endowment for the Arts to complete a large-scale mural. This opportunity enabled him to transition to working as a full-time artist.
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Alongside his artistic practice, Caruso maintains a deep commitment to teaching. In 2019, the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona hired Caruso to lead a summer-long mural project with six high school students. They met Monday through Friday mornings at the University of Arizona to conceptualize the project and learn public art fundamentals. The project resulted in a 25-foot mural beside the pool at Palo Verde Park.
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Other public speaking engagements include lectures on Augmented Reality at the Indigenous-led Cahokia organization, the ASU School of Social Work, and the Gilbert City Hall lecture series.
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In 2017, Caruso completed a residency with The Arctic Circle, sailing through the glacial fjords of Svalbard. During the residency, he collaborated with geologists, sailors, and fellow artists. This experience helped inspire a 50-foot mural in Downtown Phoenix. This environmental focus continued with a residency in Greer, Arizona, in collaboration with the Arizona Community Foundation Environmental Accelerator.
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Caruso was selected from a large pool of applicants to join a think tank of biologists, lawmakers, and community outreach managers to create an artwork that would inform the public about the challenges our local ecology faces. He successfully collaborated with the Cocopah Tribe in Yuma to create a custom paint-by-number mural. In 2026, Caruso looks forward to attending the FUSION artist residency in Tokyo, Japan, where he will contribute a custom mural to BnA Wall.
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Caruso is also the published author of Sam & Sara. Completed in 2023, it’s his most ambitious project to date. This initiative is a 54-page children’s book illustrated entirely with murals located across Arizona. This first-of-its-kind concept earned him the 2023 Artist to Work Grant, the Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist Opportunity Grant, the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona Pivot Award, the City of Phoenix FLASH Grant for District 3, and commissions from Canal Convergence with Scottsdale Public Art. The story follows a young woman who, like the author, is on the ADD/autistic spectrum. She navigates a world of imagination to find a sense of home. Caruso used this opportunity to reach out to students and teachers through public readings at Arizona libraries, public schools, and the Arizona Teacher Conference.
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Caruso is a CODAworx award-winning sculptor for his iconic 20 × 20 × 7-foot piece Resilient Light, which debuted along the Southern Light Rail extension in January 2025. Later that year, he was selected to contribute his piece, Wings of Ancestors, to the Multicultural County Park Sculptural Exhibition with the City of Flagstaff. Caruso designed and fabricated the piece from reclaimed ponderosa pine sourced from the area. His most recent 3D project is a collection of 16 shade structures placed throughout Phoenix’s bus corridor to provide shade for pedestrians, commissioned by the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.
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Murals remain central to Caruso’s practice. In 2025, he completed the largest mural in Arizona with fellow artist Evan Hillis. The 746 × 40-foot narrative mural along the Southern facade of Revel Surf is a landmark piece of public art in the Phoenix mural community. Caruso is known for combining a keen eye for realism with an emotional color palette and a touch of street-art sensibility.
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Caruso’s graphic design education distinguishes his practice. He possesses advanced knowledge of print processes and digital design. This skill set has been critical to initiatives like the screen-printed merchandise he produced for the Phoenix Suns and the limited-edition poster art run commissioned by Valley Metro. The first 150 copies of Sam & Sara included a lithographic print designed and produced by Caruso.
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Drawing on his extensive experience, Caruso has also overseen artistic initiatives as an administrator and curator. His Sam & Sara project required him to coordinate 54 murals with local arts organizations, chambers of commerce, and private entities like APS. He has curated outdoor galleries in Downtown Phoenix while successfully raising $50,000 in partnership with APS and the Churchill to provide the artists with a stipend. For Verde at Cooley Station, Caruso partnered with AZing Tours to curate and coordinate one of the most extensive outdoor galleries. Caruso has also advised APS on artistic elements for its new Garfield Substation, slated to break ground in spring 2026.
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His goal as an artist is to bring people together through public art and his broad range of creative interests.
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Artist statement
Hello, my name is Isaac Nicholas Caruso. I am an artist and creative director based in the Southwest with 14 years of professional experience. I create public art to engage and communicate with communities. I create powerful and uplifting imagery that brings energy and inspiration to my surroundings.
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My role as an artist is to craft visual narratives that bring people together. Creating public art as a performance, showing my love for the neighborhoods I work with, and striving to involve the community as much as possible in the process. Whether for placemaking, entertainment, or enhancing the urban landscape, I strive to make our world feel more connected through public art.
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My previous clients include:
AARP
APS
Arizona Commission on the Arts
Arizona State University
Arizona Cardinals
The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona
AZ Humanities
Banner Children’s Hospital
Chicanos por la Causa
The City of Tempe
The City of Tucson
The City of Sunrise, Florida
The City of Flagstaff
Coachella
CODAworx
The Desert Botanical Garden
DTPHX organization
The Flaming Lips
Fork and Dagger Hospitality
Free Arts
The Home Depot
INFLUX
lululemon
Mesa Arts Center
METLIFE
The National Endowment for the Arts
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Pedal Haus
Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture
The Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Valley Metro
Pueblo Grande Museum
Roosevelt Row organization
SAACA
Safeway
Scottsdale Public Art
Scottsdale Fashion Square
Someburros
Sky Harbor International Airport
Superfly Productions
United Way
University of Arizona
Valley Metro
West Valley Arts Council
Z Tejas