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.
Closed on statutory holidays.
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. Pre-registration is required.
Browse visual arts courses & workshops online or via the brochure.
Visit https://efun.toronto.ca
You will need the following information:
To obtain your client and family numbers, please call Client Services at 416-396-7378. Staff are dedicated to providing timely, accessible and high-quality services to the public and will take all reasonable measures to accommodate accessibility needs.
Please contact Clark Centre for the Arts, if you have any special needs requirements. The Clark Centre for the Arts is excluded from Parks, Forestry and Recreation policies and procedures, including the Welcome Policy.
January 3 to December 24
Lobby Installation Space
Tree roots dig into the ground as mirroring branches stretch into the air: visible and concealed, they simultaneously nourish each other. This installation by Camille Jodin-Eng draws inspiration from systems of interconnectivity that echo throughout the botanical kingdom, the human body and the technological world. It consists of a central tree whose branches seemingly grow into the shapes of curious symbols. The tree is imperfectly symmetrical, referencing the systems of circulation within the human body. Its branches reflect in a pool on the ground made of discarded mirror scraps and stones.
January 3 to June 30
Lobby
Informed by an interest in ecology, Charmaine Lurch brings thoughtful and focused attention to the complexity of the natural world and the interactions of humans within it. Bees are critical to human survival, but they are often invisible. These large-scale sculptures magnify the size of these insects and call attention to relationships between humans and other species. The shadows cast by wire forms create a physical extension and a subtle doubling that evokes the fragility of nature. Inspired by the work of bee biologist Laurence Packer, Lurch’s investigations and explorations marry art with science.
January 3 to June 30
Lobby Entrance
Clark 01 and Guild 02 are site-specific works that were originally conceived for the 2022 CONTACT Photography Festival show “we are all human” by Thomas Brasch. Guild 02 is an homage to the original Guild of Artists, while Clark 02 is a tribute to a new generation of artists who will be working out of the centre. Both pieces are typical of Brasch’s complex photographic digital manipulations.
March 3 to 30
Celebrate the achievements of Women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics with an exhibit from the Canadian Multicultural Innovators Museum. Explore the inventions and innovations that women from diverse communities around the world have given to society.
April 1 to 30
Opening Reception: April 1, 1 to 3 p.m.
This exhibition explores three mediums that the artist Destinie Adélakun has utilized throughout her career. Daughters of the Diaspora is a photographic essay that emphasizes the iconographic significance of women from the African diaspora whilst exploring the memories of West-African spiritual practices, folklore and rituals. The Unseen presents two powerful large-scale paintings and textile quilt that share a narrative on colourism and shade(ism) in South-Asian art history and mythologies. Faces of my People is a photo essay inspired by Adélakun’s paternal grandmother and Yoruba ancestral archives.
May 2 to 30
Opening Reception: May 7, 1 to 3 p.m.
Anojan Sathasivam has been working on this photography project for the last five years. His body of work documents the quiet life of Scarborough, escaping the busy downtown core and showcasing familiar spaces and scenes that many residents know personally. Sathasivam’s late-night commutes from downtown Toronto inspired him to capture the light and scenes of Scarborough by night. He has 10+ years of experience as an artist, and his background in urban planning has influenced his photography, documenting neighbourhoods in the City and the changing urban landscapes. This exhibit is part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.
June 3 to 29
Opening Reception: June 3, 1 to 3 p.m.
Inspired by the Clark Centre’s creative past and community-centred approach of today, this exhibition examines how our bodies interact with various surroundings while carrying their unique particularities.
Gallery rentals at the Clark Centre for the Arts are available on a monthly basis between January and December 2023.
Gallery 191 spans three floors and must be rented together. Art works must be exhibited for the full term of the monthly rental.
Rental rates are $1,040 per month (HST included).
To be eligible for the in-kind program, applicants must complete an application and be a resident of Toronto.
A limited number of exhibition months are reserved throughout the year for in-kind exhibitions in Gallery 191. This program allows qualifying applicants to secure the gallery space for one-month at no charge.
The in-kind program allows one qualifying applicant to secure this separate installation space, located in the full-sun of the centre’s lobby above the entrance. This successful applicant must exhibit one visual art installation in this space for a full calendar year. The artwork and supporting materials in this installation space must weigh under 50 kilograms and must fit the dimensions of the space (H 8′ x W 16′ x D 7′).
Applications for 2023 short-term exhibition rental space and the in-kind program have closed. Sign up for the CultureTO newsletter find out when applications open for 2024 and to learn about other opportunities for Toronto-based artists.
Charmaine Lurch is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work draws attention to human-environmental relationalities. Lurch’s paintings and sculptures are conversations on infrastructures and the spaces and places we inhabit. Working with a range of materials and reimagining our surroundings—from bees and taxi cabs to The Tempest and quiet moments of joy, Lurch subtly connects Black life and movement globally.
Lurch offers us materials that are seemingly simple and familiar. Figures marked in charcoal perform dynamic movements, allowing us to visualize active presence. Paint both pleases and jars vision to create new ways of seeing and knowing. Wire takes up space, is a drawing in space, wire moves through space. The formations cast shadows, trace landscapes, and act as a means to mark the inside/outside of things. These elements are her expressive and textural messengers. Bound together with research, they create signifying forms that seek to re-configure and rewire perception and ideas. Lurch’s residency will run from January to December.
Destinie Adélakun is an award-winning contemporary Canadian multi-disciplinary artist. Her work extends from photography to film, paintings, and sculpture; which explore themes of pre-colonized West African history, Yoruba mythology, religions, and spirituality. Through researching her Yoruba ancestry Destinie analyzes the connections between the diasporic traditions and customs. In her work, Adélakun utilizes individuals as a personification of principles and ideas and re-illustrate African mythological tales. Destinie is the selected 2020 cohort of the Toronto Arts Foundation Artscape Launchpad bursary. The New York Foundation for the Arts awarded her the Canadian Women Artist Award in 2020. Adélakun’s residency will run from January to June.
Lorena is a multidisciplinary artist who came to Canada from Venezuela 43 years ago. She is a graphic artist by trade, but her passion for glass allowed her to be a speaker at a glass conference at Sheridan College. Lorena has shared her knowledge by teaching in many settings across Ontario, including at the Toronto District School Board, the City of Toronto, the Botanical Gardens and private studios and galleries. In 2019, after three decades of working with glass, she opened her studio, Glass iDiaz. Lorena has displayed a 30-panel glass-on-glass mosaic piece at the Aga Khan Museum and her residency at the Clark Centre for the Arts runs from July to December.
The Clark’s Artist Residency program provides emerging and mid-career Toronto artists with opportunities to think, experiment, work and create in an artistic lakeside yet urban environment. The residency will conclude with a one-month exhibition in Gallery 191.
Applications for this program will be available in August 2023 for 2024.
Maven Talks is a free speaker series hosted throughout the year for artists and community builders to share their stories and experiences with the public.
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.