eX de Medici’s extraordinary work gravitates around concepts of power through violence, geo-economic politics and environment. Visually seductive and technically brilliant, her sumptuous paintings draw the viewer in with their beauty whilst juxtaposing this with political overtones. Growing up in Canberra, eX studied at the Canberra School of Art, combining performance art, installation, drawing, photography and painting. After receiving an Australia Council Overseas development Grant in 1988, eX worked as an apprentice with a tattoo artist in LA. which led to her working for many years as a tattoo artist. This period continues to have a profound influence on her extraordinarily diverse art practice. eX’s work portrays the unpalatable realities of our social landscape with corruption, aggression, guns and detritus often populating her work. Increasingly, eX is interested in exposing the widening divide between two sciences; one devoted to the preservation of life on our planet and the other bent on the destruction of the world through the advancement of human industry and greed. She questions the fetishisation of weaponry and the ceaseless appeal to violence by those of who claim to protect peace. With her masterful and intricate compositions, eX often veils meaning in symbolism, luring her audience into political territory. As Samantha Littley, Curator at the Queensland Art Gallery articulates, within each of eX’s works “there is a silent yet persistent plea: for us to recognise the insidious nature of the systems that control us, to wake us from our collective stupor, and to demand change”.
eX de Medici has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally and is a regular participant in national and international awards. In 2002, she won the National Works on Paper prize and was selected as a finalist in the Dobell Prize for Drawing (2002), the National Self-Portrait Prize (2013 and 2015)and the Singapore Art Prize (2014.). In 2009, eX was selected for the prestigious Artist in War program (Solomon Islands Peace Keeping mission) for the Australian War Memorial. She has worked on a number of commissions including a portrait of Midnight Oil for the National Portrait Gallery in 2001 and “Shotgun Wedding Dress” for the National Gallery of Australia in 2015. In 2020, eX had a solo survey exhibition at the Wollongong Regional Gallery and was included as one of fifteen contemporary Australian artists in ‘Full Face’ at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. eX has been included in the ‘Know My Name’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia from 2020-21 and, in 2023, ‘Beautiful Wickedness’, a major survey exhibition of eX’s work was held at the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art. All of the art works from her 2021 Beaver Galleries exhibition ‘Double Crossed’ were included in the survey and loaned by the collectors who acquired them. eX de Medici’s works are represented in many significant collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Portrait Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery and the Australian War Memorial.
