Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean

Commissioned as part of a partnership between the non-profit Murals of La Jolla project and UC San Diego, Jim Isermann's monumental Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean is an explosion of color in the heart of one of the campus' most diverse communities: International House.

The mural consists of 12-foot "modules" designed to bend and flow as viewers walk past. Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean was completed in 2025.

Jim Isermann (b. 1955) is a renowed public artist currently based in Palm Springs, CA. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.