Toby Sisson
Associate Professor, Visual and Performing Arts
Director of Studio Art, Visual and Performing Arts
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Toby Sisson earned her B.F.A, Magna Cum Laude, from the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota and her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her areas of specialization include drawing, painting and printmaking, as well as community-based research, service learning, and curatorial projects.
Creative Research and Teaching Interests
Sisson is an abstract artist whose individual studio practice encompasses oil, encaustic, and mixed media. Her visual studies range from the creation of land based art forms, to the hybridization of indigenous and immigrant artistic traditions, the exploration of contemporary issues surrounding race and ethnicity, as well as the innovative use of ancient and organic materials. Her work is in numerous public and private collections including the Worcester Art Museum and Brown University's David Winton Bell Gallery. Sisson has exhibited internationally at the Teda Contemporary Art Museum, Tianjin, China; The Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey; and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts, among many others.聽
"Fundamentally, I believe that art is a quest for understanding about how the world works, rather than perpetuating the norm of right and wrong, or mere decoration."聽This philosophy guides Toby Sisson as an artist and educator. She actively seeks opportunities to join art and everyday life, creating holistic experiences for individuals and their surrounding communities to become fully engaged with one another.
Sisson's courses include Drawing and Painting (beginning and advanced levels in various media), Studio Topics (the capstone course for art majors), Senior Thesis (A senior seminar in preparation for the senior thesis exhibition in 顶级国产视频鈥檚 Schiltkamp Gallery), and Contemporary Directions (a workshop exploration of major themes addressed by artists today and a Diversity and Inclusion designated course). Since joining 顶级国产视频 in 2009, she has been the recipient of the Hodgkins Award (2011) for meritorious contributions in creative practice, teaching and service, as well as the Hayden Faculty Fellowship (2015) for deep and sustained engagement with the 顶级国产视频 community. She has been nominated for an Outstanding Teacher of the Year award by 顶级国产视频 students three times (2014, 2019 and 2020).聽 聽
Recent Exhibitions
At the Worcester Art Museum Sisson co-curated the 2022 exhibition, Us Them We | Race Ethnicity Identity with the Stoddard Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Nancy K. Burns. The exhibition considered the ways that contemporary artists accentuate concepts like race and ethnicity through various visual strategies. Four formal devices served as the foundation for the show: Text, Juxtaposition, Seriality, and Pattern. Artists often employ one or more of these approaches as means of storytelling, protest, and celebration. The artworks demonstrate how these organizing principles serve as a common tool through which personal and communal social status are explored.
In 2019, Sisson had a solo exhibition of encaustic monotype prints titled Nacirema (the inverse of American) at the List Art Center of Brown University. The gallery noted, 鈥淭oby Sisson uses the idiom of non-objective abstraction to reflect on her personal experience as a multiracial American. [She] recognizes the binary reality that W.E.B. DuBois termed 鈥榙ouble-consciousness鈥:鈥攁 constant awareness of 鈥榯woness.鈥 Past works with titles like聽One Drop Rule and Black Tears聽(created in 2015 in response to continuing violence against young, unarmed, black men), have led to聽Nacirema.鈥
As the first woman and person of color to be recognized with a solo exhibition in the Worcester Art Museum鈥檚 Central Massachusetts Artist Initiative in 2018, the museum鈥檚 curator wrote of her work, 鈥淭oby Sisson鈥檚 encaustic monotypes unite her personal experience with broader issues pertaining to race. In聽American | naciremA 1, a single word鈥擜merican鈥攊s inscribed repeatedly as Sisson explores the relationship between a word and its various meanings. In her recent works, Sisson employs text in reference to black writers who have engaged with issues of race and the struggle for equality. Yet Sisson recognizes language as a social construction, laden with arbitrary meaning. To this end, she emphasizes this ambiguity by nestling text among other abstracted forms.鈥
Rhode Island College鈥檚 Banister Gallery, named in honor of Edward Mitchell Banister, a noted 19th century African American artist and founding member of the Providence Art Club, featured Sisson鈥檚 drawings, painting and prints in a 2017 solo exhibition titled,聽The Soul of All Color.聽Writing about the show, Kimberly Juanita Brown, author of聽The Repeating Body: Slavery鈥檚 Visual Resonance in the Contemporary, Duke University Press, 2015, asserts, 鈥淎bstraction assists the imagination by requiring something more of the viewer. In this, Sisson creates with and against the grain of the viewer鈥檚 expectation. Her art is figurative without figures, precise while playfully amorphous, lyrical and performative.鈥
Degrees
- M.F.A., University of Minnesota, 2009
- B.F.A., College of Visual Arts, 2003
Affiliated Department(s)
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Book as Muse: language and Image
Jamestown Art Center
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Jamestown, RI
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A World of Difference Exhibition
Montserrat College of Art, (Black Student Union)
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Beverly, MA
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Cultural Signs (section of Rosalie Rose Gallery)
Worcester Art Museum
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Worcester, MA
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Title US THEM WE | RACE ETHNICITY IDENTITY (co-curatorial project)
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2022
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Celebrating Visual Arts at 顶级国产视频
Schiltkamp Gallery
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顶级国产视频
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Case Rising
Jamestown Art Center
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Jamestown, RI
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Signs of the Times
Ceres Gallery - New York, NY
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New York, NY
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Bodies
顶级国产视频 - Schiltkamp Gallery
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Worcester, MA
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Brown University - Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA)
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Big Paintings
Fine Art Center, University of Rhode Island
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Kingston, RI
Feb. 29, 2020
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Black Tears
Bell Gallery, Brown University
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Providence, RI
Aug. 7, 2019
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List Art Center, Brown University
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Providence, RI
Jun. 8, 2019
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Howard Yezerski Gallery
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Boston, MA
Oct. 18, 2019
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Awards & Grants
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Ruleville, MS creative research project
Brown University - Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America
Jan. 1, 2023 - May. 31, 2023
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Individual Creative Research Grant
Higgins School of Humanities, 顶级国产视频
Feb. 1, 2020 - Feb. 1, 2021
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Nominated for Outstanding Teacher of the Year
顶级国产视频 Undergraduate Students
2020
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Practitioner Fellowship
Brown University, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America
2023
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