eX de Medici
eX de Medici | Australia b.1959 | United spectres #3 2005–06 | Etching, printed in black ink, from six plates on paper; ed. 10/15 | Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2008 | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist
The Hand, the Eye & the Heart | 1 October 2011 — 12 February 2012 | GOMA | Free admission
eX de Medici's practice focuses on the signs of power and control and those of the fragility and brevity of life. Many of her works are extensions of her practice as a celebrated tattoo artist and feature guns and skulls, the swastika and other fascist and religious motifs, as well as symbols from Australia’s colonial past. De Medici signals the vulnerability of our own culture through these symbols: she describes the ancient swastika symbols as ‘beautiful signs for ugly people’. In her hands, this emblem of aggression and oppression is intertwined with the Star of David, most commonly associated with Judaism, and adorned with elaborate patterning inspired by the natural world. This layering and patterning is expressed with the skilled methodical strokes of natural-history illustration – a genre often associated with classifying and ordering the world during colonisation and the days of Empire.
