Known by de Medici as ‘Big Pearly Yellowcake’, The Theory of Everything 2005 includes symbols that, for her, represent the intemperance of ‘John Howard’s monetary policies’ and ‘neoliberal excess’. Featured are an imaginary, diamond-studded poodle — a dog that was originally bred as a water retriever and clipped so its thick coat would protect its vital organs, only to have its grooming assume purely decorative purposes — and Semper Augustus tulips, a reference to the first documented boom and bust that beset seventeenth-century Holland when tulip bulbs the Dutch East India Company imported from the Ottoman Empire were bartered for untenable prices.

These emblems of extravagance nestle beside more sinister objects, including exploded ammunition and a Smith & Wesson M&P pistol. The tableau recalls seventeenth-century Dutch still-life paintings that warn of the lure of worldly possessions. In the background looms the Ranger Uranium Mine, in the Northern Territory, which de Medici explains:

. . . lies in the middle of [Kakadu] national park. On traditional lands . . . So [it is] the idea of wealth at any cost, and acquisition at any cost . . . it’s a hideous critique of what’s going on.