eX de Medici, born in the Riverina region of NSW, 1959, lives and works in Canberra. Having a background in performance and installation art, Medici was the first tattooist in Australia to be awarded a grant from the Australia Council to travel to Los Angeles in 1989 to complete a Formal Apprenticeship in tattooing.

de Medici’s intricate and highly skilled watercolours, although continually shifting in subject matter, are documents and investigations of human interventions and the relationship between life and death. Underneath their beauteous aesthetic an orchestration of violence and destruction is composed using the imagery of skulls, firearms and military paraphernalia wreathed by organic detritus. de Medici composes captivating still lifes that reveal the dichotomy. 

de Medici’s work is held in numerous public institutions and collections in Australia. Solo exhibitions include Soft Steel, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2003) and Secret Life of Plants, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra (2001). Group institutional exhibitions include Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2010), Perspectives, Australian War Memorial, Canberra (2010), Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Art and Violence, La Trobe University Museum, Melbourne (2008), Neo-Goth: Back in Black, The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2008) and New Acquisitions, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2008). In 2009 Medici participated in the Artist in War Program as an Official War Artist through the Australian War Memorial, ACT, in the Solomon Islands Peace Keeping Mission.