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The following were the artists in residence in 2016:

Nancy Holmes – poet from Kelowna, British Columbia


Nancy Holmes has published five collections of poetry, most recently The Flicker Tree: Okanagan Poems (Ronsdale 2012). This book is a collection of poems about the place, people, plants and animals of the Okanagan valley in the southern interior of British Columbia where she has lived for the past 20 years. Her other books are Valancy and the New World (Kalamalka Press, 1988), Down to the Golden Chersonese: Victorian Lady Travellers (Sono Nis, 1991), The Adultery Poems (Ronsdale, 2002) and Mandorla (Ronsdale Press, 2005). She is also the editor of Open Wide a Wilderness: Canadian Nature Poems (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2009), the first-ever anthology of Canadian nature poetry. Nancy is Associate Professor in Creative Writing in the Department of Creative Studies at The University of British Columbia in Kelowna. Over the past few years, she has become increasingly active in creating, supporting and curating eco-themed community-based art projects with her students and other artists.


Rachel MacFarlane – painter, collage artist and digital animator from Toronto, Ontario


Rachel MacFarlane is an artist who works primarily in painting, collage and digital animation. Her work responds to current issues of simulation. She has a BFA from OCAD University, a Certificate of Advanced Visual Studies from OCAD Florence program and will receive her MFA from Rutgers University in spring 2016. Solo exhibitions have been presented at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, the Howard Park Institute, Toronto, and Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax. She participated in group exhibitions in New York City, Florence, Quebec City, Halifax, Toronto, New Jersey and Philadelphia. She has been awarded the resident artist position at the Robert Pope Artist Residency at NSCAD, Triangle Artists Workshop, NYC, and Cow House Studios, Ireland. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Drawing and Painting medal from OCAD University, the Rutgers Mason Gross Dean’s Choice Award, Ontario Arts Council grant and Sam Abramovitch Fellowship to Attend Triangle Artists Workshop. Her work is included in the collections of Scotiabank, The Donovan Collection at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and numerous private collections. She is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto. www.rachelmacfarlane.com


Kathy Stinson – author of children’s literature and other works from Rockwood, Ontario


Kathy Stinson grew up in Toronto, sorted mail, taught school, waited tables and sold Tupperware before figuring out that what she really wanted to do was write. In the years since, she has published more than 30 titles, most of them for young people. Her first book, Red is Best (1982), has become a classic. Her most recent, The Man with the Violin (2013), won the TD Children's Literature Award. Harry and Walter will be released during her residency at Fool's Paradise, while she is at work on her first novel for adults.  Kathy has conducted writing workshops across Canada and in Liberia, and has worked as an editor in both countries. In her leisure time, she enjoys reading, photography, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, walking in the woods, serving as a volunteer at the CNIB Recording Studio, and spending time with her family. Mother, stepmother and grandmother, Kathy lives in Rockwood, Ontario, with Peter Carver and their dog Keisha.


Ehryn Torrell – painter and mixed-media artist from Newmarket, Ontario, now based in London, U.K.


Ehryn Torrell is a London, U.K.-based artist who works in paint and various media. Her expressive work speaks to personal experience, rapidly shifting built environments and, most recently, visual overload in the digital age. During her residency, she plans to investigate how memory and personal narrative can play out in the fragmented collage space of her new paintings. Recent exhibitions of her work have been held at the Joinville Art Museum (Brazil), Gerald Moore Gallery (London, U.K.), Gallery Jones (Vancouver), The Invisible Line (London, U.K.), Equinox Gallery (Vancouver), Cape Breton University Art Gallery (Sydney), Nocturne (Halifax), Grimsby Public Art Gallery (Grimsby) and Galerie de L'UQAM (Montreal). She is the 2006 recipient of the Joseph Plaskett Foundation Award and has travelled extensively for artistic research. She has participated in numerous residencies, including The Expansionists (U.K.), Musagetes/Art Gallery of Guelph (Canada), Florence Trust (U.K.), Fiskars (Finland), LKV (Norway) and The Banff Centre (Canada). Torrell gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. For more information, visit www.ehryntorrell.com.


Winnie Truong – visual artist specializing in pencil drawings from Toronto, Ontario


Winnie Truong is an artist who specializes in large-scale coloured pencil drawings on paper. In recent years, Truong has developed a body of work that generates a dialogue between beauty, hair and the drawn line. Focusing on the subject of hair, she imagines its new possibilities beyond ornament and toward living objects and environments. Truong lives and works in Toronto, where she received a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design’s drawing and painting program. Truong is a recipient of the Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council visual arts grants and is the recipient W.O. Forsythe Award, the 401 Richmond Career Launcher prize and the BMO 1st! Art Award for Ontario, through which she exhibited at the MOCCA. Winnie has exhibited internationally in galleries across Toronto, Los Angeles and Copenhagen, and in New York where she was featured at VOLTA, NY Art Fair. Her work has been published in numerous art publications, including the cover of Hi-Fructose, Juxtapoz, and Walk the Line: The Art of Drawing. Her work is in the collection of The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas, Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto and Bank of Denmark. http://winnietruong.com