Art In The Park

Artist in Residence Program

Creating Connections Through Art

The Artist-in-Residence Program is helping to connect people and the national park through art. Sponsored by the Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, each artist spends three to six weeks in Gros Morne, exploring, photographing, sketching and participating in the park's interpretive program. The program is open to Canadian and international professional visual artists, working in any media, whose work reflects or draws on the natural environment.

Artist Bill Ritchie painting on the Long Range Mountains.
© Parks Canada / Sheldon Stone

Parks Canada's goal is to build broader awareness of Gros Morne National Park and its value to Canadians. By creating work from their experiences in the park, artists can reveal meanings and relationships that complement the scientific and educational perspectives presented by park staff. While science can lead to a better understanding of nature by breaking it down into its component parts and learning how they function, a work of art can celebrate the wholeness of natural systems, and the value of retaining the whole working system. Through artists' participation, Parks Canada hopes to expand the way the park is seen by local residents, staff, visitors and audiences beyond park boundaries.

Artist Diana Dabinett at Green Point.
Collection of Barb Daniell

For the Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, the residencies are a way of extending its programs to other communities in the province; bringing new and broader audiences into contact with contemporary artists; providing a stimulating working experience for artists; and encouraging artmaking that explores and even challenges ideas and issues in landscape art.