The Wave, by Falmouth College of Arts student, Fiona Garlick, won the Worshipful Company of Founders grand first prize in the 2005 BAMS Student Medal Project. The medal was a response to the Asian tsunami of December 2004. The artist explained that, for her, ‘the most powerful image of the event was from a journalist’s description of villagers running to gather fish stranded on the beach, as the sea receded minutes before the giant waves hit. Nature’s freebie came at a price.’ About her medal, now issued by BAMS, the artist writes: ‘The fish stranded in the centre represents both the loss of sea life and the non-western people who died, whose numbers would have been consigned to the media back pages had not western holiday-makers been involved. On the other side I have taken the iconic wave image from Hokusai’s woodcut, and erased its clarity, just as the events of the tsunami have become scrambled. The words are from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, which use the imagery of the ocean to comment on human nature, just as the tsunami disaster has effectively exposed more than just fish on the beach: “To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of an ocean by the frailty of its foam.”’
The Wave
The Wave
By: Fiona Garlick, 2005
Medium: cast bronze
Size: 75mm
Cast by: Falmouth College of Arts
Issue: The Medal, no. 47 (2005)
Edition: 32