Located inside Guild Park and Gardens, the Clark Centre for the Arts is a stunning new cultural facility that houses specialized art studios and gallery spaces that Toronto residents and visitors can enjoy year-round. The Centre provides rental opportunities and delivers close to 85 accessible arts programs annually, including art courses, workshops and talks.
Guild Park and Gardens is a unique 88-acre site on the Scarborough Bluffs that includes forests, shoreline and a collection of architectural fragments, sculptures and buildings.
Free
Monday to Sunday: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Statutory holidays: Closed
Limited free parking is available.
From Kennedy Station, take the 116 bus to Guildwood Pkwy at Guild Inn East Side.
For specific TTC route and schedule information call 416-393-4636 or visit the TTC website.
Clark Centre for the Arts offers a variety of visual arts workshops for children and adults. Browse the visual arts courses and workshops online or via the spring brochure.
Registration is required. In-person registration is possible with debit or credit. Cash payment is not accepted.
Learn how to activate and access your account or call 416-396-7378, option 1, Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Please email cca@toronto.ca, if you have any special needs requirements.
Clark Centre for the Arts is excluded from Parks & Recreation policies and procedures, including the Welcome Policy.
January 27 to March 1
Reception: February 7, 1 to 3 p.m.
Enjoy Maren Boedeker’s body of large-scale, mixed-media paintings grounded in intuitive perception and process. Drawing from sensory experiences – colours, landscapes, environments, fragments of sound, music and voices – Boedeker approaches painting as a dialogue with the canvas, allowing each work to unfold through responsiveness rather than predetermined intention.
March 4 to 30
Reception: March 7, 1 to 3 p.m.
Experience the perceptual interplay between light, colour and geometry, whereby environments characterized by structure and stillness are created. Yue Gao’s works originate as digital studies of light and form, which are then reconstructed into new spatial configurations.
April 2 to 29
Reception: April 11, 1 to 3 p.m.
Encounter the tension between memory and absence, what was shared and what was imagined, through landscape-based abstraction and figurative fragments by Jeffrey Malcolm. The landscape is not literal but functions as a symbolic space where internal states unfold, where what has passed lingers and what remains continues to shift.
May 2 to 31
Reception: May 2, 1 to 3 p.m.
Examine the visual and material tension between wilderness and human control along Scarborough’s shoreline park system. Using traditional photographic techniques, Chris Thomaidis’ work moves from representational landscape toward abstraction, tracing how natural forces and urban intervention shape one another over time. The project draws from repeated visits to shoreline parks, beaches and wooded areas along the bluffs.
June 5 to 29
Reception: June 7, 1 to 3 p.m.
Trace the overlooked spaces of Scarborough, a Toronto district often shaped by misconceptions. Returning to the place where she grew up, Jennifer Lee reconnects with its communities and terrain, uncovering moments of beauty while observing neighbourhoods in transition.
Chris Thomaidis (he/him) is a Toronto-based photographer working with a diverse range of subject matter and media. Contemplative observation best describes his process, with a strong graphic sensibility in both his pictorial and abstract work. His professional work has been recognized in American Photography Annuals, Communication Arts Design & Photo Annuals and many advertising and design awards competitions. He has lectured at OCAD and Toronto Metropolitan University and mentored youth in the Magenta Foundation Incubator program. Throughout his career, Chris made a conscious decision to make personal work that differed from his professional work. His personal work can be found in corporate and private collections throughout North America and Europe.
Negar Pooya is a multidisciplinary visual artist, originally from Iran and now based in Toronto. Her art practice encompasses photography, painting, printmaking and digital art. In recent years, Negar’s focus has been on exploring humanity’s relationship with nature and the environment, as well as themes of identity, self-awareness and freedom. Negar has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions across Iran, Canada, Japan, Romania and the USA. Her art has been acquired by several esteemed museums and private collections, including the Contemporary Museum of Art in Iran, the Women’s Edge Coalition in Washington, the University of Maryland, Mobile Museum of Art, Florean Museum in Romania and the International Museum of Women in California.
The Clark’s Artist Residency program provides Toronto artists with opportunities to think, experiment, work and create in an artistic lakeside yet urban environment. The residency concludes with a one-month exhibition in Gallery 191.
Applications are currently closed. Learn more.
The Clark Centre for the Arts site has a long tradition of creativity and fine arts. In the 18th century, the land surrounding the Clark Centre for the Arts site had been divided into tracts that were granted to loyalists who had served in the American Revolutionary War. After changing hands a number of times, General Harold Child Bickford purchased the property in 1914, named it the Ranelagh Park Country Estate and built the well-known Bickford House. Today, the Bickford House is a Designated Heritage Property, and considered an excellent example of early 20th Century Period Revival style with Arts and Crafts detailing.
In 1932, Rosa and Spencer Clark founded the Guild of All Arts after Rosa purchased 450 acres of land. The Guild of All Arts contained shops, a tea room, and studios in fine art and craft, including painting, sculpture, hand-loom weaving, tooled leather, ceramics, metal work, wood carving and batik. After the Second World War, the Clarks expanded the hotel and restaurant operation and created formal gardens. The area became known as the Guild Inn or the Guild. During Toronto’s building boom that began in the 1960s, many historic 19th and 20th century downtown buildings were demolished. As an advocate for architectural preservation, Spencer Clark recovered many of these buildings’ facades and architectural features to display on the grounds of the Guild.
Architectural services were provided by Taylor Hazell Architects and the construction was undertaken by Atlas Construction Ltd.
The Sculptor’s Cabin is a small historic building located near the front entrance of Guild Park and Gardens. It was renovated in spring 2019 and serves the community as a meeting place and information centre.
Under a community partnership agreement with the Guild Park Stakeholder Group, comprising Friends of Guild Park, Guild Festival Theatre, Guildwood Community Village Association and Guild Renaissance Group, the Sculptor’s Cabin acts as a vibrant community resource to promote civic and cultural engagement.
Located south of the centre, the Log Cabin operates as a program resource to support the Clark Centre’s Artist in Residency and pre-registered programs.