Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist Mark Thomas Gibson will present “Time After Time” as the Cleveland Institute of Art’s 2025 Curlee Raven Holton Inclusion Scholar.

During this narrative-focused artist talk, Gibson will discuss art history and his relationship to selected works. He will also share insight about his own bodies of work and the political/historical events that took place as they were created, from earlier in his career to present day. This includes work currently featured in Possibility for Repair, a group exhibition on view through February 9 in CIA’s Reinberger Gallery.

“Time After Time” will take place at 6pm Thursday, February 6 in CIA’s Peter B. Lewis Theater. A reception will follow the presentation. This event is free and open to the public but registration is required to attend. Register here by Friday, January 31.

“Time After Time” marks the second annual event for CIA’s Curlee Raven Holton Inclusion Scholar Program, which provides established and emerging artists from traditionally marginalized groups opportunities to engage with students in professional development and networking at CIA. Holton earned his BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from CIA in 1989.

Artist bio
Gibson's (b. 1980, Miami) personal lens on American culture stems from his multipartite viewpoint as an artist, a professor, and an American history buff. These myriad and often colliding perspectives fuel his exploration of contemporary culture through the language of painting and drawing, revealing a vision of America where every viewer is implicated as a potential character within the story.

In 2016, Gibson co-curated the traveling exhibition Black Pulp! with William Villalongo at 32 Edgewood Gallery, Yale School of Art. The show examined evolving perspectives of Black identity in American culture and history from 1912 to 2016 through printed media and artworks.

Gibson released his first book, Some Monsters Loom Large, in 2016 with funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Gibson’s second book, Early Retirement, was released in 2017 with Edition Patrick Frey in Zurich, Switzerland and was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 2021, Gibson was awarded residencies at Yaddo and the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency as well as a Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia, and a Hodder Fellowship from the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 2022, Gibson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York and was named a 2022 Grantee by The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in New York.

In 2023, he had a solo exhibition Whirlygig! At Sikkema & Jenkins Co., he was included in the exhibition Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America at the African American Museum in Philadelphia and exhibited his solo exhibition, A Retelling, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) in Detroit.

In 2024, he was awarded The Chiaro Award by the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California and was an artist-in-residence at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent solo exhibition, Lineage, is on display at the Library Company in Philadelphia until January 2025.

Mark Thomas Gibson is represented by M+B (Los Angeles) and Loyal (Stockholm, Sweden). He is currently an Associate Professor and Program Head of Painting at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University and lives and works in Philadelphia.