eX De Medici

The artist was born 12 April 1959 at Coolamon, in the Riverina district in south western New South Wales.[3][4] but grew up in Canberra, ACT.

She attended the Canberra School of Art, combining performance, installation and photography in her fine art degree.[5][6]

In 1988, while in Melbourne, she received her first tattoo. For the next 12 years she worked as a tattoo artist. She was awarded an Australian Council Overseas Development Grant and apprenticed to a tattoo artist in Los Angeles. During the 1990s she exhibited photographs and drawings of her tattoo work. [2]

Active in the Canberra Arts Community, eX de Medici participated in a working group supporting the establishment of a Contemporary Art Space in Canberra, which held a public meeting at Gorman House in Braddon ACT in 1986.[7] The invitation to the opening of the Canberra Contemporary Art Space notes "an exhibition of site specific works" including her work (July - August 1987).[8]

In 1998 she saw botanical art paintings of Australian native flora painted in the early nineteenth century in watercolour. Seeing a connection between the detailed paintings and her own tattoo art, eX de Medici began painting in watercolour in a highly detailed style. [2]

De Medici then lived for 18 months (1998 - 2000) on Norfolk Island working on a large watercolour painting containing details of flowers, fruit, porcelain and skulls which referenced her own family history. This work, entitled Blue [Bower/Bauer] 1998-2000, was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 2004 and will feature in the NGA's Know My Name exhibition in Canberra over 2020/21.[9]

Back in Australia, she began work on a detailed painting of moths. She turned to Australia's science organisation CSIRO for help and for twelve years worked with them as an Artist Fellow.[2]

In 2006 de Medici was awarded APW Collie Print Trust Printmaking Fellowship.[10]

In 2009, she was an official war artist for the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.[11]

An untitled photocopy piece appeared at the Bitumen River Gallery exhibition "The Printed Image" (April–May 1986).[12]

She was among artists appearing in the Australia & Regions Artists' eXchange (ARX87), Perth and Fremantle, Western Australia in September 1987.[13] The ARX87 June Newsletter described her (as) "producing a work in two parts, one for Canberra and one for Perth, utilizing photocopiers and generating images in response to the Perth locality, placed in public spaces with regular changes."[14]

Her "Scenes from an Ivory Tower" was exhibited in 1987 at "Utopia Nowhere", Gallery 111, Canberra.[15] The work also appeared at The Canberra Contemporary Art Space (May–June 1988),[16] and The Australian Centre for Photography (April–May 1989).[17] The Australian Centre for Photography Exhibition Programme described the work as "A large scale work in composite laser photocopy...a long-term working title for a view from the Political Capital. The work addresses...the 'Violent Act', particularly those perpetrated by women on women, and the cultural positioning of the 'victor' and victim'."[18]

Text works eX de Medici were performed at Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan in December 1988.[19]

A colour screenprint titled Alexis says desire drules, Ok was included in "Posters - the politics of life" at aGOG in Canberra in April 1989.[20]

Her painting Cure For Pain was a major donation to the Australian War Memorial in 2017, made by Erika Krebs-Woodward through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.[21]

In 2020-21 her work, The wreckers, was shown in Part One of the exhibition, "Know my name: Australian women artists 1900 to now" at the National Gallery of Australia.[22][23]