Meet the artist

Our statue was conceived and designed by artist and sculptor Johanna Domke-Guyot.

Johanna works in many mediums including bronze, ceramics and glass. She specialises in representing the human form in a way that generates an emotive response from the viewer, something you can see reflected in our statue.

Johanna was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1994 and studied art as a way of coping with her illness. She has a strong connection to our charity having partially lost her vision as a result of her MS and met many of the veterans we support.

Our bronze statue was inspired by a photograph she saw of First World War veterans blinded in combat and leading one another away from the Front. She initially produced the sculpture that this statue is based on to mark our centenary in 2015. This sculpture is a much loved fixture at at our Centre for Wellbeing in Llandudno, North Wales. This bronze statue will stand proudly outside Manchester Piccadilly station as a permanent memorial to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Johanna, who has both a bachelor's and a master's in fine art, has developed special techniques as an artist. Due to her MS, her fingers have little feeling in them and her vision is still partially blurred. Because of her own disability, Johanna feels very strongly about the need to make artworks, such as Victory Over Blindness, accessible to the public.