"Deconstructed American"
2019. Encaustic monotype on paper mounted on wood, 80 x 120 in.
"Making my work is like drawing lines in wet sand with a long stick or composing a patchwork quilt from faded remnants. Often it’s like walking under a vast night sky onto which I project my fantasies and fears. These explorations are born of sense perceptions and tactile negotiations with the material world. The simultaneity of inside and outside, the duality of human and inanimate, even the oppositional forces of above and below are distinguishing characteristics in my work. While my concerns stem from specific relationships—history, place, identity—it is the work’s innate ambiguity that I cherish most. I strive to make art that operates on many levels, is able to hold paradoxical meaning, and evolves just ahead of my own ability to comprehend its entirety."
Toby Sisson earned her BFA, Magna Cum Laude, and was Co-Valedictorian of her graduating class, one of only a handful of minority students at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. With a focus on drawing, painting, public art and teaching, she received her MFA from the University of Minnesota.
In 2009, Sisson joined the faculty of Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts where she teaches Beginning and Advanced Drawing and Painting, Studio Topics and Senior Thesis seminars. She was awarded the Edward Hodgkins Junior Faculty of the Year Prize in 2011 for meritorious contributions in creative practice, teaching and service. Sisson has been nominated three times for an Outstanding Teacher of the Year award by Clark University students (2014, 2019 and 2020). She was granted tenure in 2015 and received the Hayden Faculty Fellowship for deep and sustained engagement with the Clark community. She currently serves as the Director of the Studio Art Program in the Department of Visual & Performing Arts.
Outside of the university, she is on the Board of Directors for ArtsWorcester, an organization that engages artists and the public to advance and celebrate contemporary art; serves on the Collections Executive Committee for the Worcester Art Museum; and is a member of the Dark Room, a race and visual studies collaborative research cluster. Sisson has exhibited her paintings, drawings and prints internationally, including the Teda Contemporary Art Museum, Tianjin, China; The Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey; and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her work is in numerous public and private collections; among them, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island and the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts. Toby Sisson's home and studio practice are located in Providence, Rhode Island.