The meticulous detail and layered symbolism in this drawing reflects the Baroque fascination with ornamentation and visual drama, while its subject matter – nuclear radiation – grounds the artwork in the modern world. The trefoil nuclear symbol is comprised of cut gems and pearls, intricate and fragile petals, and snake-like vertebrae, warning of the presence of radioactive material. Through these motifs, de Medici employs the seductive power of beauty to entice viewers to engage with a moral narrative that reveals deeper truths about human greed. In 2005, when de Medici created this work, the rising global demand for Uranium-235 – among countries expanding their nuclear energy programs at a time of limited supply – caused prices to surge. In appropriating this highly charged emblem, de Medici alludes to both nuclear proliferation and to the enormous financial profits gained from uranium mining.

Although de Medici’s practice is often compared to Baroque vanitas paintings (where objects such as skulls and weapons are used to symbolise life’s transience) – of which Still Life with Bouquet and Skull c.1642 by Adriaen van Utrecht is an example – her work can also be read through the lens of the Baroque idea of ‘worlds within worlds’. Miniature scenes within larger compositions that suggest layers of meaning were popularised by artists such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Frans Francken the Younger in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In de Medici’s drawing, she adopts a similar approach replicating organic imagery and symbols of wealth at a micro-scale to represent destruction and power, asking us to reflect on its structures, and on the fragility and brevity of human life.