Croy Nielsen

Georgia Gardner Gray is known for her encompassing exhibitions that incorporate
theatrical narrative into their component parts, blurring the lines between artwork,
character and prop.

For her Statements presentation, Gray creates an enveloping set – comprising painting,
sculpture and architecture – at the center of which will be the Controller, an
undercover employee of the Berlin transit system whose job is to catch fare dodgers.
The Controller is designed to deceive: dressed in plain clothes and profiled to look
like fellow passengers. These employees – unskilled and working odd hours for low
wages – are not so different from the citizenry they police. Gray’s protagonist embodies
the insidious specter of societal control present in her chosen German home,
Berlin. Her project casts the audience to probe the psychology of both passenger
and controller.

Taking on varying personas often comes to the forefront in Gray’s work. The
byproducts of this performative move make up the works, with contradictory viewpoints
playing in counterpoint. Symbols of the past and present are equally appropriated,
begging the value of continually projecting into a utopic future.