e de Medici

The subject of many of eX de Medici’s works is the precarious balance between life and death as seen in the recurring use of the human skull – a symbol of mortality used in the genre of still life painting. Based in Canberra, eX de Medici works as an artist, and as a tattooist. She completed an undergraduate degree in visual arts at the Canberra School of Art, and since the early 1980s her art practice has incorporated performance, installation art, tattooing, photography, painting and drawing.

Her work brings a contemporary perspective to the vanitas tradition contrasting botanical watercolour studies of flowers and animals with images of conflict weapons, bullets, skulls and swastikas. Her interest in the tattoo industry grew from the Punk scene and its ethos of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture, combined with a questioning of conservative /traditional values, particularly in the art world.

She was awarded a grant from the Australia Council in 1989 and moved to USA to study tattooing. A year later she returned to Australia and focused on tattooing, researching its history and opening her own studio. In 1999, she was an artist-in-residence at the CSIRO Entomology Division, working with the Australian National Insect Collection, developing her synonymous style of overlaying moths onto weapons.

eX de Medici has exhibited extensively in Australia and her work is represented in major collections. Recent solo exhibitions include eX de Medici@MPRG, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 2004; and Soft Steel, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2003. eX de Medici is represented by Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney. She lives and works in Canberra.

Suggested topics for discussion and research:

Compare and contrast with examples from Flemish/Dutch still life painting (1400-1500) and Natural History scientific drawing and illustration (John Gould, Ernst Haekel).

Describe the similarities between the techniques and processes involved in tattooing and water colour in eX de Medici’s work.