eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness

69 68 EX DE MEDICI: BEAUTIFUL WICKEDNESS Capitalism is what is left when beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer-spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics. 10 In other words, the more you consume, the less you live. Into the void: Skulls, flowers, insects, guns De Medici also brings the plight of the non-human to our attention in a remarkable series of watercolours that isolate and magnify her recurring symbols, which are catalysts for a critical examination of contemporary relationships involving self, society and nature. In the worlds she shows us, metamorphosis is possible for a gun, as well as a skull, while a moth can absorb both fantastic patterns and components of militaristic or technological hardware. These hybrid forms elude easy classification; the line between natural and artificial is blurred, and the artist is an agent who can enact transformations. Many of the creatures and objects that feature repeatedly in de Medici’s practice embody inherent contradictions or simply defy logic: skulls are highly textured and furry, and have the capacity to transmogrify ( Desire Overcoming Duality 2006), metallic surfaces that should be glossy and shiny are vegetal ( Vincent Verdigris 2021), and moths absorb myriad patterns and exist as radical hybrids ( East India Trading Co. 2021). Consider, for example, Desire Overcoming Duality 2006, one of the most compelling works in the artist’s oeuvre, in which two skulls enveloped in vibrant moth ‘pelts’ are tethered by a gun scope connected to an intravenous tube. Embellished with jewels and ermine, the fur traditionally worn by royalty, their symmetrical shape recalls the wings of a splayed insect and is also reminiscent of the symmetry of a Rorschach test inkblot. The intricate frond-like elements covering the skulls are evidence of de Medici’s intensive scrutiny of the microlepidoptera (or small moths) that she has figuratively dissected during numerous extended residencies at the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC), where she has spent years studying both classified and yet-to-be-named species. The meaning of the outwardly enigmatic artwork crystallises when we understand that the artist’s ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ is the unholy offspring of the military-industrial complex or, in her words, ‘the ruling class and the military feeding off each other’. 11 The skull is of course central to the vanitas and memento mori traditions, so celebrated by Dutch Baroque artists, but also central to medieval ossuaries and the danse macabre (‘dance of death’ tradition). With her Catholic upbringing, de Medici is well versed in these religious tropes. Importantly, the skull also has long associations with learning, and was often found in the studies and libraries of scholars in the medieval and early modern periods. The Christian scholar Saint Jerome was often depicted holding a skull, touching it carefully to enact his absorption of knowledge. For this reason, art historian Georges Didi-Huberman argues that skulls invite a tactile response: ‘Before the skull-sign, before the skull-object, there is therefore the skull-site — a site which worries thought and which nevertheless situates it, envelops it, touches it, and deploys it’. 12 De Medici’s hybrid skulls also seem to invite touch due to their radical hybridity and decidedly tactile surfaces. With this palpable and inferred sense of touch, de Medici enacts yet another of her cherished subversions. It is well known that when Aristotle ranked the senses, he placed sight at the top of the hierarchy, followed by hearing, smell and taste. After smell and taste, touch was the lowest on the ladder of the senses and considered an inferior way to experience the world. This convention held true for the classical world and, arguably, well into the nineteenth century, and perhaps even to this day. 13 In presenting us with a decidedly haptic world, de Medici undermines these entrenched biases and demands equal status for the least appreciated of the senses. Perhaps this egalitarian approach has something to do with de Medici’s background and training. After initially studying fine arts at the then Canberra School of Art, de Medici found the art world to be so unwelcoming that she branched out into tattooing. 14 The practice of tattooing is one of the oldest and most universal of art forms, Desire Overcoming Duality (detail) 2006 Pages 72–3: Spy (Tehran/Qom) (detail) 2012