A word from the artist

"I was positively tickled to receive Théâtre Cercle Molière’s invitation to sign the visual campaign for their 2024-2025 season of programming.

This season’s theme - connection - reveals our lives’ inherently relational nature. Others give meaning to our experiences: our ancestors, our grand-mothers, our dear friends, our loves, our children, our accomplices - even strangers: the ones on the bus, the ones on TV.

To me, connection evokes simple, familiar and immediate physical gestures - like deep, sustained eye contact, a vigorous handshake, resting gently on another’s shoulder, a bout of shared teary-eyed laughter, a light, febrile kiss on the lips.

Connection invites us to be curious, to share, to collaborate - all things which I had the opportunity to put into practice through effervescent exchanges with many of the playwrights who will be presenting their work at Théâtre Cercle Molière this year.

Our imaginations were in brief conversation and from there, I started to draw. My illustrations for this visual campaign bring to mind a surrealist cartoon vibe. I express ideas of intimacy and isolation, of poetry and acrobatics, of community and heartbreak, through the body language of a cast of rather audacious characters."

About Cato

Cato Cormier is a visual artist who tells stories mainly through illustration and comics. They grew up in the Montréal suburbs then here and there, before putting down roots in Winnipeg.

At the heart of their drawing practice is a yearning to connect with others through humour, to elicit joy and to investigate the absolute pleasure and sheer horror of being alive.

They draw eccentric humanoids and regular folks in a style characterized by its playful yet precise lines. Their work is at times surreal, often cheeky, sometimes emo.