Take the Scales From my Eyes

About Take the Scales From my Eyes

This indoor tabletop figurative sculpture that includes fish is forged from bronze and patinated.

The award-winning sculptures of Susan Valyi were often created from an imaginative use of ‘found’ materials. Her recent discovery of a nearby forgery has allowed her to play with a new material—bronze. This is one of a series of figurative pieces she has hand-forged and patinated in a rich turquoise-blue colour. Here a simple human figure stands on a small pedestal in a casual pose, arms raised and in an amusing ‘twist’ he’s holding two small fish that cover his eyes. Valyi is known for injecting humour into her work—a distinctive and delightful hallmark of her approach to sculpture that always begins with a sketch.

“I can see my work as quirky and somewhat naive. I’m comfortable with that. I work from drawings and photographs both mine and in the public domain. So far these sculptures all have fish in them. This will probably end at some point.” Susan Valyi

Susan Valyi was born in Vancouver, B.C. and studied art for two years at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax in the mid-1970s. She has received two awards—one from the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair and another from the New Art Festival in Ottawa. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Canada and is held in numerous private collections.