What a work of art. This is a piece that has taken me by surprise. To finally see different kind of work from an alternative artist. I was excited to attend this exhibition and see a piece of work by a tattoo artist. Ex de Medlici is a tattoo artist that has a passion for old style navy tattoos and the mechanics of guns. She has taken this contemporary military high powered weapon and surrounded it by softening and consuming them with garlands of flowers and other tradition tattoo pieces.
I love the repeated pattern of nautical stars and swallows which then blend in with the ornate asian flowers. Even though the masculinity of the guns and the skeletons shows the harshness of what war can create, eX has allowed the viewer to see the beauty in the mechanics of these high powered weapons. Every artists sees objects in different lights and eX goes beyond to allow the view to look at them at a different angle.
Her love of the military culture has dominated her artwork and as she has many friends in the military they have invited her to draw the weapons so she can have more of an objective view. eX was recently invited to go to East Timor and was commissioned for the to do a piece of war art.
Hi Wendy
ReplyDeleteI think you succeeded in gathering an intereting range of designers and artists to review, that also relate to you personally. Of special note was the work of David Dowton, Brian Froud, J'Aton and Nap Perdis. I also was happy you were able to view and write on the Story of Stuff and see some of the ethical issues facing contemporary designers. Your decription of the Monash visit was well written and gave a good indication of your experience. Clearly the experience of rape would be both physically and emotionally horrendous and abhorrend. It would seem that this "artist" was trying to confront the viewer by exploring degradation and the not so pleasant side of life. You are right, some warning signs should have been placed outside by the university. It's always difficult in a society that advocates "free speech" how one creates boundaries without censoring and losing the notion of freedom. This is perhaps the current debate with Wikileaks...