Born in Oslo 1956 Sobye decided to withdraw from university in 1983 to pursue art on his own. He debuted in 1987 on the 100th Anniversary State Exhibition. Sobye won the Public vote prize and the work was purchased by the Norwegian National Gallery. He had his first solo-exhibition in Tokyo in 1994, which was followed by the other nine solo-exhibitions in Tokyo. In 1999, the main newspaper in Japan, Asahi Shimbun, organized a large retrospective collection of his work in Tokyo and two other cities. Last solo exhibition in Tokyo has been viewed by more than 50,000 visitors in March 2006. Now the exhibition of his work has been showcased by the Takasaki Art Museum, the Modern Museum of Art, the Gunma and Shoto Muåseum of Art.