Mark Thomas Gibson’s ‘The Voyage’ Brings a Shipwrecked America Home to Miami

Mark Thomas Gibson, “The Shipwreck,” 2025, is part of the painter’s show at KDR Gallery in Miami through Monday, Feb. 23. (Image courtesy of the artist and KDR Gallery)

It’s hard to think of a more potent metaphor for the chaotic state of America in 2026 than a sinking ship. That’s the idea behind a new show from painter Mark Thomas Gibson at KDR Gallery in Miami.

Functioning as a homecoming show for the Miami-born artist, “The Voyage” brings together eight new canvases from Gibson, all featuring nautical scenes that offer macabre commentary on the condition of our culture and where it’s going.

“The idea of ‘The Voyage,’ for me, has been a lot about, well, who’s leading? Who’s steering the ship, and what’s our idea around the future?” says Gibson. “Who speaks in a way about the future that brings us all together so we can all get on this vessel together and move forward? And I don’t think I hear that. So I have to put that out there too.”

Two sets of work make up the exhibition. One is a diptych of a ship before and after its wreckage, the before painting named “Ship of Theseus” after the philosophical parable that could easily apply to a changing America: Is a ship (or any object or entity) that has had all its parts replaced still the same as the original, or is it a different thing altogether?

Mark Thomas Gibson, “Fornicators,” 2025, (Image courtesy of the artist and KDR Gallery)

The other depicts a series of scenes featuring various people and objects treading water amidst flaming wreckage. The human figures – no faces, just limbs flailing about – are all in the midst of some unseemly activity. In “Backstabber,” one suited, pale-skinned hand punctures a lifeboat while another in a pinstriped sleeve cuts a vital rope lifeline. In another work, aptly named “Fornicators,” two sets of feet stick out of a raft, one in men’s dress shoes and the other wearing red stiletto heels. A blue bikini top has been conspicuously cast aside.

Florida iconography also makes its way into the paintings, sometimes in unflattering ways. “Coming Home” features a flock of chickens and roosters, referencing the birds’ ubiquity in Miami “Everybody who’s from Miami has a relationship culturally to the rooster and chickens, from African-Americans to Haitians and Cubans and Latin Americans,” he says. “Conspirators” features the state flag amid a tangle of white-robed arms, one holding a match near a pair of wooden beams conspicuously placed in the shape of a cross.

The juxtaposition of the state’s official banner – as Gibson points out, the flag references not only the Confederate stars and bars but also the Cross of Burgundy used by the colonial Spanish empire – with visual references to the Ku Klux Klan serves as an unsubtle reminder of Florida’s legacy of colonialism, segregation, and racist terror. Gibson hopes these satirical, darkly humorous elements in the artworks will inspire conversations that people in Miami typically avoid.

Mark Thomas Gibson, “Conspirators,” 2025. The painting pairs the Florida state flag with Ku Klux Klan imagery. (Image courtesy of the artist and KDR Gallery)

“Being from here, you know you’re in the south. And if you’ve ever shared space with people, with their flags and their beliefs, if you’ve ever had dinner with people, you will find that often people don’t want to talk about their politics. They don’t want to broach that line, because a lot of those lines have very specific cultural histories that are also attached to them. But at the same time, with humor, everyone has to deal with the power dynamics that kind of give humor its fuel.”

Though he now lives in Philadelphia, Gibson knows the territory of Miami well, having spent much of his early life here. He attended the New World School of the Arts before moving on to Cooper Union and Yale, and his father served as postmaster of Homestead after Hurricane Andrew. The flat, yet vibrant colors in the paintings are as much a reflection of the culture in South Florida as they are a tribute to his father, who became an artist himself and an aficionado of Caribbean art before he passed away in 2023. In particular, the artist praises his “strong, steady hand and a great sense of space,” as well as a knack for color.

“He started painting after he retired, and it turns out he was actually kind of good,” he says. “I was like ‘damn it, he can actually do this.”

Mark Thomas Gibson, “Coming Home,” 2025. The artist painted the chickens in the work as a tribute to the Miami neighborhoods where the birds roam freely. (Image courtesy of the artist and KDR Gallery)

Gibson learned of his father’s artistic skills one day when he asked his son to take him to an art supply store. He later found out he had always had artistic talent, but sacrificed a potential creative career, including a scholarship to study architecture at Northwestern University, in order to support his family. It wasn’t until he finally retired that he decided to explore this side of himself in earnest.

“He really started becoming interested in Caribbean art, and looking at stuff from Haiti and looking at things that had a very particular kind of stacked, flat sense of space,” he says. “I want to push-pull on that. I want to figure out ways to like, deal with bright color, deal with radiant things, deal with things that don’t exactly quite fit, and with some of the style and some of the ways I’ve been painting over the years.”

Despite Gibson’s history in Miami, the artist has rarely exhibited in his hometown, making the homecoming show something of a special occasion for KDR Gallery and its owner Katia David Rosenthal.

Born and raised in Miami and now working and living in Philadelphia, Mark Thomas Gibson’s homecoming show is at KDR Gallery, Miami. (Photo by Ryan Collerd, courtesy of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage)

“Mark has shown us some of the best museums and galleries, and as a Miami based gallery, as a regional gallery, it’s sometimes hard to call on artists that have had such an extensive resume,” she says. “So it’s very special to have an artist like this come show in Miami, especially in my space.”

Rosenthal first became interested in working with Gibson after seeing a painting of his at the NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) art fair in Miami. They kept in touch for several years before the artist came for a visit in person.

“We spoke about works that I really loved that he was making, and he kind of riffed on that,” she says. “I think it’s like a very interesting time to have the show open, especially a few weeks past what’s happening here in the U.S.”

Likewise, Gibson hopes the work will provoke some kind of response in viewers, although he doesn’t see himself as putting out any specific call to action.

“Maybe they can find in the show that they can convene and have those conversations and maybe do some actual action,” he says. “But I’m not the leader. I’m the drummer. It’s more about the backbeat. It’s more about witnessing. I’m witnessing a train wreck. I’m witnessing a shipwreck. I’m witnessing something falling apart. And we can do that wearing very nice clothes and driving very nice cars, but it’s all going to end up in the same place. That’s how I feel.”

WHAT: “Mark Thomas Gibson: The Voyage”

 WHERE: KDR Gallery, 790 NW 22nd St., Miami

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Open Saturday, Jan. 17 through Monday, Feb. 23

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: 305-392-0416 and kdr305.com

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