Diana Thater is a 1990 graduate of ArtCenter’s MFA program in Art who has taught at the College since 1995 and currently serves as the chair of the Art Department.

One of the most important art figures to emerge in the 1990s, the Los Angeles-based artist has been a pioneer in the use of film, video, light and sound. Drawing from a range of sources, including literature, animals, mathematics, chess and sociology, her work challenges the boundaries of time-based media and installation art.

As part of a prolific four-decade career, Thater’s work has been featured in over 90 solo exhibitions, including Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, a landmark survey show at LACMA in 2015, and in more than 200 group exhibitions. Her work is represented in major museum collections around the globe, including LACMA, Los Angeles; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Pinault Collection, Paris; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Thater has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her distinguished career, including an Art+Technology Lab Grant from the LACMA (2018) and the James D. Phelan Award in Film and Video (2006), as well fellowships with the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2005) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1993). In July of this year, she received a Milestone Grant from the Trellis Art Fund and was honored with a 2025 Art Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara.