eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness

29 28 EX DE MEDICI: BEAUTIFUL WICKEDNESS 2022. The THAT Contemporary Art Space collective had previously sent an exhibition to Bitumen River Gallery titled ‘Anywhere’ (19 February – 15 March 1987), which featured work by Anderson, Paul Andrew, Brian Doherty, Sally Hart, Leanne Ramsay, Jay Younger and Anna Zsoldos, and was subsequently shown at Michael Milburn Galleries, Brisbane (20 March – 11 April 1987). De Medici was familiar with Brisbane’s artist-run scene having studied painting, photography and printmaking at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, Toowoomba (1980–81), and having travelled to Brisbane regularly to see exhibitions and live performances by bands such as The Slits, The Pug Uglies, and Xero. She also attended land rights meetings that the Weatherall brothers held at St Luke’s Anglican Church in Toowoomba. She joined the brothers’ ‘convoy that went to Brisbane’ to protest and demand land rights on 26 and 29 September 1982, just prior to the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, before returning to Canberra to begin her studies at the Canberra School of Art in second semester; eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 19 August 2022. 21 eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 19 August 2022. 22 eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 5 May 2022. 23 The samurai was ‘a warrior class that rose to power in the 12th century and dominated the Japanese government until the Meiji Restoration in 1868 . . . During the Muromachi period (1338–1573) under the growing influence of Zen Buddhism, the samurai culture produced many such uniquely Japanese arts as the tea ceremony and flower arranging that continue today'. See ‘Samurai Japanese warrior’, Britannica , <britannica.com/topic/samurai >, viewed October 2022. The artist has noted that the samurai were ‘servants to feudal masters’, eX de Medici, email to the author, 12 October 2022. The Lara RSL Sub Branch, Victoria, holds a Japanese gunto steel sword and scabbard decorated with cherry blossom motifs that may have been worn by a Japanese NCO or Officer; see, ‘Sword, Japeanese [ sic ] Gunto 1944, circa World War Two’, Victorian Collections , <victoriancollections. net.au/items/59549a2e90751a320cab67cb> , and a ‘Sword, World War Two Japanese NCO/Officer Sword and Scabbard, 1932 to 1944’ that has a guard decorated with cherry blossoms, see <victoriancollections.net.au/ items/59549a2e90751a320cab67cc>, Victorian Collections , both viewed 14 October 2022. 24 eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 19 August 2022. 25 eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 19 August 2022. 26 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 27 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. In 1983, Barba opened her first parlour, Twilight Fantasy, in Anaheim, Orange County, California. Her current studio, Outer Limits Tattoo, operates from two locations in California: Long Beach, Los Angeles County, and Costa Mesa, Orange County. 28 De Medici has been included in three Adelaide Biennials: 1990, 1996 and 2014. 29 Mary Eagle, ‘Introduction: New meanings for an Australian culture of many cultures’, in Mary Eagle and Daniel Thomas (eds), 1990 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art , Art Gallery Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1990, p.4. 30 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 31 ‘Acanthus leaf meaning and symbolism (triumph, death & more)’, Atlas Mythica , <atlasmythica.com/acanthus-leaf-meaning-symbolism/ >, viewed September 2022. eX de Medici, quoted in Parker, p.74. The third work in the series, United Spectres #3 2005–06, is an etching in six plates that measures 134 x 134cm (overall); an edition of this print is held by QAGOMA. eX de Medici, quoted in Ted Gott, ‘eX de Medici: An epic journey on a Lilliputian scale’, Art and Australia , vol.40, issue 1, 2002, p.106. 32 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 33 See Florence Dwight, ‘In honour of Ferdinand Bauer’, Eucryphia , June 1998, reproduced in Australian Plants Online , <anpsa.org.au/APOL21/mar01-6. html>, and LA Gilbert, ‘Bauer, Ferdinand Lukas (1760–1826)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography , <adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bauer-ferdinand- lukas-1754>, viewed October 2022. 34 The exhibition was first shown at the Museum of Sydney, 13 December 1997 – 19 April 1998, and subsequently at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 27 April – 19 July 1998. 35 eX de Medici, sp. [room brochure], Helen Maxwell Gallery, Braddon, ACT, 2001, unpaginated. 36 eX de Medici, ‘NVAEC 2016: Plenary session 1 – eX de Medici’ [20 January 2016], National Visual Arts Education Conference (NVAEC), National Gallery of Australia , 15 June 2016, <nga.gov.au/on-demand/nvaec-2016-plenary- session-1-ex-de-medici/>, viewed September 2022. 37 Jacqui Durrant, ‘Business as usual: Artist eX de Medici’, Photofile , issue 90, August – November 2010, p.18, <search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.slq.qld.gov. au/fullText;dn=201010698;res=IELAPA>, viewed September 2022. 38 Kelly Gellatly, ‘eX de Medici: Symbols of mortality’, Artlink , vol.26. no.3, 2006, p.19. 39 eX de Medici, conversation with Francis E Parker [file note], Curatorial Assistant, Australian Art to 1970, Brisbane, 19 September 2006, Queensland Art Gallery Research Library Artist File. Material evidence establishes that Muslim merchants traded porcelain across land and sea via the Silk Road, and that ceramic forms were exchanged between China and West Asia; see Lili Fang, Chinese Ceramics , trans. WilliamWWang, China Intercontinental Press, Beijing, 2005, pp.76–7. 40 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 41 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 42 See Julie Newman, ‘Draft report on regulation of agriculture by Australian Productivity Commission’, Australian Government Productivity Commission , <pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/206457/subdr128-agriculture.pdf >, viewed September 2022. 43 Jeffrey Kluger, ‘The suicide seeds’, TIME , 1 February 1999, <content.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,18814,00.html>, viewed September 2022. 44 eX de Medici, quoted in Flynn. 45 Gellatly, p.21. See also ‘eX de Medici – ANIC artist-in-residence’, ANIC News , no.17, June 2002, p.15; and Marianne Horak, ‘The terrible beauty of moths’, in Cold Blooded: eX de Medici [exhibition catalogue], p.44. Horak has also noted that moths ‘fly at night in the dark where they cannot be seen’ and that ‘when they die, [they] quickly turn to dust’. De Medici additionally worked with Dr TomWeir on the ANIC collection; see eX de Medici, quoted in Leong, p.93. 46 ‘sp.’ was shown at Helen Maxwell Gallery, in Braddon, ACT, which succeeded Maxwell’s aGOG: australian Girls Own Gallery, in Kingston, ACT, where de Medici also exhibited. As historians Roslyn Russell and Barbara Lemon have documented, aGOG ‘made a stir by showing women’s art only. The small ‘a’ for Australian was an equally deliberate point being ‘slightly anti-nationalistic’ in flavour. Speaking about the decision to exhibit solely women’s art, Maxwell said: ‘A number of people objected to it, argued with me and said it was sexist. But there were also many supporters to whom I will always be grateful and for me it felt right and that was important. I felt that the opportunities for men to show their work was still much greater than those for women’; see Roslyn Russell and Barbara Lemon, ‘Helen Maxwell’, Australian Women’s Register , <womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2104b. htm#:~:text=Helen%20Maxwell%20is%20a%20freelance,lived%20from%20 1979%20to%202014>, viewed October 2022. 47 eX de Medici, telephone conversation with the author, 6 July 2021; and eX de Medici, quoted in Leong. 48 eX de Medici, quoted in sp. [room brochure]. 49 Curator Magda Keaney has noted that the ‘wing markings are from five moth species known to have existed in the Ranger area’ prior to the commencement of mining, which are now likely to be extinct; see Magda Keaney, ‘Seduce and destroy’, National Portrait Gallery , 1 December 2001, <portrait.gov.au/ magazines/2/seduce-and-destroy>, accessed December 2022. 50 eX de Medici, quoted in Daniel Browning, ‘Tattoos, watercolour with eX-de-Medici + Angelica Mesiti at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris’ [audio], ABC Radio National , 8 June 2022 <abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the- art-show/ex-de-medici/13920064>, accessed June 2022. 51 See Doug Hall, ‘eX de Medici: The art of beyond belief’, in Nick Mitzevich (ed.), 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart [exhibition catalogue], Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2013, p.78. For a discussion of the work de Medici completed for her commission, see Diana Warnes, ‘The jungle . . . it just came alive’, in Laura Webster and Diana Warnes, Perspectives: Jon Cattapan, eX de Medici , Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 2010, pp.29–33. For a discussion of de Medici’s fascination with, and condemnation of, the machinations of war, see Dr Jenny McFarlane, ‘Entangling ground’, Beaver Galleries , <beavergalleries. com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021-Essay-by-Dr-Jenny-McFarlane.pdf >, viewed December 2022, including McFarlane’s discussion of de Medici’s watercolours Calumny and Entangling Ground , both 2021, which were made collaboratively with Wu Wei Rong. See also Kelly Gellatly, ‘eX de Medici: Double Double Crossed’, Sullivan+Strumpf , <sullivanstrumpf.com/assets/ Uploads/eX-Magazine-April-May-2022-DIGITAL-38-45.pdf>, viewed December 2022. 52 eX de Medici, ‘NVAEC 2016: Plenary Session 1 – eX de Medici’. 53 De Medici exhibited ‘Double Crossed’ at Beaver Galleries, Canberra, in 2021, and ‘Double Double Crossed’, at Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, in 2022. 54 eX de Medici, quoted in Browning.