Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, January 22, 2025: Harley Valentine, a Canadian artist, sculptor (#2198)

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Artist of the Day, January 22, 2025: Harley Valentine, a Canadian artist, sculptor (#2198)

Harley Valentine (1983) is a contemporary Canadian artist based in Toronto, Ontario. Valentine is best known for his metal-plate biomorphic sculptures that build on the formalism of mid-century American sculptors, such as Alexander Calder, and John McCraken. His sculptures have been internationally recognized. and commissioned by the federal government of Canada. He is currently completing a major sculpture commission The Dream Ballet, for the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts Plaza, in front of Daniel Libeskind’s L Tower residence building in Toronto, Ontario.

In 2014, alongside architect David Binder, Valentine unveiled "The 30 Carabob Quartet", which was the first outdoor sculpture park in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario. The four sculptures of the series came from Valentine's first large scale sculpture series The Barbarians. That series was first exhibited at The Campbell House museum in 2013.

Aside from sculpture, he sparked his early career with photographic collages of iconic urban topographies, such as Parisian landmarks and American Architecture.

Valentine often invites the role of performance, film and photography in the creation and presentation of his works, as seen in his 2014 short video project, "The Dance of The Dove", featuring a stop motion collage of a Canadian ballerina dancing around Valentine "Dove" sculpture.

Valentine employs 3D modeling and printing in the creation of his monumental works. He uses the Makerbot z18 to make these 3D printed maquette, which Valentine has said he considers as artworks themselves, staging the prototype prints next to full scale works in exhibition. This style of working from model to monument is profiled in the video From Model to Monument.

His sculptures and photo-sculptural works focus on the theme of collapse and the rebirth of civilizations, while questioning the constructs of a glorious, unattainable past.

In a national newspaper interview profiling Valentine when he was named among Canada's "Worthy 30", the artist said he takes his inspiration every morning from a Picasso lithograph, his most prized possession. "It’s my golden chalice. I drink from its creativity every morning." He has said that two seminal ancient sculptures, "The Diskobolus of Myron and Lacoön and His Son, serve as his ongoing "spiritual navigators." Canadian painter, and co-Toronto citizen, Charles Pachter also inspired and influenced Valentine's work.

In 2013, Valentine completed production of his first major public art installation, The Dream Ballet, which is to be unveiled at the Claude Cormier-designed Sony Centre Plaza, in front of Daniel Liebeskind's L-Tower residence. For Valentine, being awarded this commission was "nothing if not a career-defining project for an artist not yet out of his 20s."

The project consists of a triptych designed in homage to the National Ballet of Canada's four-decade residence at the site; the three sculptures depict abstracted ballet dancers in various dynamic positions.

In February 2013, Valentine unveiled his controversial sculpture The North Pole, which plays on themes of aboriginal art and global warming, at the De Luca Fine Arts gallery. For it, Valentine cast in bronze a seven-foot, 100-year-old narwhal tusk.[14] Drawing on a desire to bring attention to the receding arctic ice floes, as well as the controversial decision to re-appropriate a symbol generally reserved for Aboriginal artists, he insisted he " wanted to emphasize that the tusk is a miracle of creation in its own right, not just the source of a luxurious material for doing other things"

Valentine’s Persephone was the first public sculpture acquired for Humber College's Lakeshore Campus. It features a modern interpretation of Persephone, the Greek goddess of Spring. The nine-foot tall sculpture is prominently placed in a high traffic area of the college campus, allowing students and faculty to interact with it. "Sometimes the sculpture adopts a tall, quiet presence, while at other times students purposively interact with it through observance and discussion."

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