September 2026 – August 2028

What does it feel like to become the trophy? Eager Sinking brings together new and recent works by Calgary-based painter Toni Cormier. The exhibition features earnest storytelling that draws on the masculine world of sportfishing, weaving it with personal narrative. Cormier’s rich, meticulously rendered oil paintings describe moments of care, exploitation and desire – fish pulled from the water by their gills, fish nurseries teeming with young trout, and hands tempting fish with lures. Light refracts across the surface of shallow water while fish flit in and out of the shadows of rocky riverbeds.

At its core, Eager Sinking delves into the relationships between fish and fisherman, creating slippery analogies to the experience of living within systems of power. Cormier uses the tension between the angler and fish to complicate moments of tenderness and longing with exploitation.  Throughout the work in Eager Sinking, fish are not simply objects to be captured. They transform into human-fish hybrids, with playful volition and deep emotions. They subvert our human perspectives through underwater landscapes and refracting light, offering different outlooks, perhaps even fishy ones.

Curated by Alexa Bunnell
Touring from the Alberta Society of Artists, TREX Southwest

Toni Cormier is a visual artist and arts educator in Moh’kinstis (Calgary, Alberta). Based primarily in painting, drawing, and sculpture, her work looks at the interdependence of beings and the dynamics of power in which we live with each other. Structures of play, deception, absurdity, and social roles are explored through imagery based in an Albertan lived experience. Cormier graduated with distinction from the Alberta University of the Arts with a BFA with distinction in Drawing. Cormier is an artist and arts programmer in Calgary, Alberta, where she is the Senior Faculty, Studio at National accessArts Centre. Her solo exhibition, Eager Sinking, will be touring through TREX Travelling Exhibition Program SW between 2026 and 2027. She exhibited at Herringer Kiss Gallery in Surface, Surface, curated by Nate McLeod, and is a summer Artist-in-Residence at the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre.

tonicormier.com