Speaker Series 2026
Black Visual Culture / Black Life

TOBBY SISSON

May 13 | 12:30pm | Haldeman 246

TOBY SISSON is Associate Professor in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts atClark University, where she teaches drawing, painting, and contemporary art practice. She earned her BFA, Magna Cum Laude, from the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota and her MFA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Toby’s individual studio practice encompasses oil, encaustic, and mixed media, with visual studies ranging from land-based art forms to the hybridization of indigenous and immigrant artistic traditions and the exploration of contemporary issues surrounding race and ethnicity.

Her work is in numerous public and private collections including the Worcester Art Museum and Brown University's David Winton Bell Gallery and has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Teda Contemporary Art Museum in China, The Hunterdon Art Museum in New Jersey, and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. At the Worcester Art Museum, Sisson co-curated the 2022 exhibition Us Them We | Race Ethnicity Identity and was the first woman and person of color recognized with a solo exhibition in the Worcester Art Museum's Central Massachusetts Artist Initiative.

She has received the Hodgkins Award and has been nominated three times for the Outstanding Teacher of the Year award by Clark University students.

Additional Speakers:

Anaiis Cisco, Reighan Gillam, Sarah Lewis, Mary Pena, Channell Russell, Malcolm Sen, C. Rose Smith