On the Edge of the Present

On the Edge of the Present

On the Edge of the Present

By: Abigail Burt, 2014
Medium: cast bronze
Size: 68 x 80 x 20mm
Cast by: Lunts Castings
Issue: The Medal, no. 65 (2014)
Edition: 45

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Abigail Burt (b. 1989) graduated with a fine art degree from Falmouth University’s School of Fine Art in 2012. While at Falmouth she won prizes in the 2010 and 2011 BAMS Student Medal Projects, and, following her degree, was awarded the position of BAMS New Medallist for 2012-13. Burt now continues life as a medal-maker, painter and print-maker, taking inspiration from wherever she travels. Her time is currently split between an art studio in the gentle countryside of central England and the buzzing excitement of London, where she works in a screen-printing studio.

Her new BAMS medal, On the Edge of the Present, belongs to a series about which the artist writes: ‘This series of medals portray the feeling of living between the past and the future. The reverse of each medal is modelled on the cross-section of trees, every age ring in the trunk representative of time gone by. The obverse of each medal is modelled from pieces of slate I found in Wales, fairly flat and smooth to reflect the clean slate of the unknown future. However, I purposely left a little of the slate’s natural texture, without polishing it completely flat, because our future is not completely without the trace of our life that has happened beforehand.

‘Around the edge of the medals, are people depicted in low relief, walking, running, cycling, skateboarding, all of different ages and travelling together around the medals, always remaining in the present, between their past and their future. Each medal in the series is cast from a piece of a tree of a different age. The BAMS medal is circled by figures of all ages, portraying a general reflection of mankind living “on the edge of the present”.’