Tipping the Scales by Sonny Sundancer for Sea Walls, California
Sonny Sundancer unveiled Tipping the Scales, a monumental 25ft x 90ft outdoor mural in Emeryville, California, created in partnership with Sea Walls, the international initiative that brings together artists and activists to highlight the urgent need for ocean and environmental conservation.
A Monumental Serpent
Across the expanse of a city wall, Sonny rendered a vast curled-up snake, its body coiled in striking rhythm, its scales illuminated in shimmering tones of turquoise, red, and violet. The creature dominates the urban space, at once hyperreal in its detail and surreal in its scale.
By enlarging the serpent to such proportions, Sonny transforms it from an object of fear into one of awe. Its body, folding into itself, becomes an emblem of strength and stillness, a reminder that nature’s most misunderstood creatures hold profound symbolic power.
The Weight of the Title
The mural’s title, Tipping the Scales, plays on multiple meanings. It evokes the snake’s iridescent skin, each scale rendered with painterly precision, but also gestures towards ecological balance. The phrase suggests the precarious threshold at which our ecosystems now stand… a tipping point between preservation and loss.
The snake, an ancient symbol of transformation and renewal, embodies this tension. Coiled and contained, it conveys both latent energy and a quiet endurance, a metaphor for resilience in the face of fragility.
Sea Walls: Art for Advocacy
Created in collaboration with Sea Walls, a global project that commissions artists to transform blank walls into messages of ecological urgency, Tipping the Scales situates environmental dialogue at the heart of the urban landscape. In Emeryville, a city perched on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, the mural feels particularly resonant: it is a reminder that balance in nature is inseparable from balance in human life.
Balance, Renewal, Reflection
In Tipping the Scales, Sonny Sundancer continues his ongoing exploration of wildlife as both subject and symbol. The snake is not only painted as an animal, but as a living metaphor — a curled guardian of balance, a quiet reminder of transformation, and a call for renewed harmony with the natural world.
Discover More
For those inspired by Sonny Sundancer’s vision, we have a curated collection of his artworks available online.