Julian Cross

Julian Cross (b. 1955) is an entirely self-taught artist working in different media. With strong reference to the living world and nature, he has applied his exceptional breadth of skills to making a wide range of art works. Having started out as a painter and illustrator, he has worked in animalier sculpture, design, jewellery, silver- and goldsmithing, coins, medals and plaster relief. He has won numerous awards for his work over the years and has work in private and public collections. Since 2022 he has been president of BAMS

            Cross’s first BAMS medal, Fox and Grapes and Crow, was issued in 1993. His new BAMS medal, As the Crow Flies, is subtitled Navigating the illusion of time & space. The artist writes: ‘The obverse depicts a spatial visual paradox of Crow in full flight apparently encased within a cage, though closer inspection shows the Crow to be unaffected and passing through the cage as if it were an illusory object. The Crow moves smoothly through space and time; it is we who fall for the illusion of the cage as the observer. The reverse is the same Crow, seen through a different lens and from the other side. Time and space exist between the windows as you observe the Crow passing through the room, from open window to open window. But Crow also exists outside the windows, just passing through, like us all. The holder of the medal is an observer, and each face is subtly concave or convex like lenses. It seems that each face of the medal has the Crow going in opposite directions, but you will see, when viewed from the edge and not through the lenses, that Crow flies in only one direction. As the Crow Flies suggests the shortest route by the straightest line, but that is just an observer’s perception. Crow flies smoothly through space and time and, as quantum particles outside of time and space are making connections all around, like them, Crow can also be in two places at one time.’