![]() ![]() The environment influences the flesh," she reflects. I'm a bit of a product of my environment, quite frankly. "Canberra is a very active political discourse city. When she was three, the family shifted to Canberra, a city she adores and still calls home. ![]() Don't get me wrong, I cannot stand football – but I have a deep knowledge of it by default," de Medici says. "To this day, I could referee an Australian Rules game. Her mother loved textile work her father was a footy tragic. ( Supplied: QAGOMA/Rob Little © eX de Medici)ĭe Medici was born in 1959 in the NSW wheat-belt town of Coolamon, though she lived "further along the track towards Narrandera". Yet she is generous in conversation about her career, which has been shaped by a willingness to say yes to unexpected callings.ĭe Medici has a passion for moths, which have symbolic associations with transformation, endings and the brevity of life. She is known to the general public only by her moniker – the first name eX is a reference to her Catholic confirmation name, Xavier the surname de Medici is "a punk joke" inspired, at least in part, by the Italian family known as the "Godfathers of the Renaissance". 'The environment influences the flesh'ĭe Medici is intensely protective of her personal life though not entirely anonymous, she rarely allows herself to be photographed, and has never engaged with the "endless pile-on" of social media.Īt the media preview for Beautiful Wickedness, she lingered at the back of the crowd, resolutely out of the spotlight. The survey illuminates her determination to challenge power, social injustices, consumerism and conflict - and inspire her audience to do the same. ( Supplied: QAGOMA © eX de Medici)ĭe Medici's 40-year career – from tattooing in Los Angeles to her show-stopping watercolours and her intricate studies of moths – is showcased in Beautiful Wickedness, a retrospective now showing at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. QAGOMA director Chris Saines says de Medici’s works “conceal surreptitious yet razor-sharp barbs". I had to speak their language," she says. "I wanted to work in a medium those men would look at, and not just dismiss instantly. In the face of Australia's political conservatism, de Medici chose a perhaps unlikely weapon: watercolour. "The West is in fact the axis of evil we have certainly proven that." And they've proven to be extremely dangerous, over and over - we helped smash an entire bloc of countries to oblivion, and they're still on their knees," she says. "I thought, 'I want to catch some conservative eyes, because these people are dangerous'. In the wake of John Howard's election in 1996, she had a furious message that she wanted political conservatives to pay attention to. The desire to seduce her audience is also why, after more than a decade as a tattooist, de Medici began working in watercolour, a medium she is now renowned for. The Theory of Everything is a statement on greed, consumption and "absolute excess" – and came 18 months before the global financial crisis. ![]()
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