TORONTO – The Ontario Heritage Trust is pleased to welcome six new artists to the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Centre. Hosted at the former home and studio of renowned Canadian artist Doris McCarthy, the residency offers artists a quiet space to retreat, revitalize and focus on their practice.

The artists selected to take part in 2023 are:

• Sonali Menezes, interdisciplinary artist
• Ariel Gordon, writer
• Erika DeFreitas, multidisciplinary artist
• Kate Finegan, writer
• Lisa Cristinzo, painter and installation artist
• Bonnie Whitehall, multimedia artist

Doris McCarthy (1910-2010) was one of Canada’s most recognized landscape painters of the second half of the 20th century. In 1998, she donated her Scarborough Bluffs property (known as Fool’s Paradise) to the Ontario Heritage Trust. Her vision was for other artists to have the opportunity to live and work at the site that inspired her own artistic expression.

Today, McCarthy’s home is a living and working incubator for artists. Since launching the residency program in 2014, the Trust has welcomed more than 40 artists to the site.

The Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Program is funded in part by the RBC Foundation in support of RBC Emerging Artists. RBC Emerging Artists is a multi-year funding commitment dedicated to helping artists bridge the gap from emerging to established. RBC’s support of the arts has been a long-standing priority as they recognize that the arts play an important role in building vibrant communities and strong economies.

Applications for 2024 residencies will open this spring. The deadline to apply is September 30, 2023.

Learn more

• Read the biographies of the artists in residence for 2023.
• Learn more about Fool’s Paradise and Doris McCarthy.
• Find out how to apply to the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Program.
• Download photos here.

Contact

For more information about the Ontario Heritage Trust, contact Patricia Njovu at 437-248-1439 or patricia.njovu@heritagetrust.on.ca.

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About the Ontario Heritage Trust

The Ontario Heritage Trust (the Trust) is an agency of the Government of Ontario. The Trust conserves, interprets and shares Ontario’s heritage. We conserve provincially significant cultural and natural, tangible and intangible heritage, interpret Ontario’s history, celebrate its diversity and educate Ontarians of its importance in our society. The Trust envisions an Ontario where we conserve, value and share the places and landscapes, histories, traditions and stories that embody our heritage, now and for future generations.

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