Natalie Dray : Dray

29 Jan-8 Mar 2015

Overview

Dray’s work is situated between the representational strategies of manufacturing, commerce and art, using all these fields as a common site of production. The works combine stereotypical patterns of automated engineering processes and human gesture typical of computer customisation. Choosing the arena of self-taught computer assembly, Dray undermines the power positions of the individuals dominating this activity and the markets, which orchestrate the brands themselves. By adopting strategies of reverse engineering of real mass-produced appliances the artist breaks down established relationships between modes of production and creation. The objects are remodeled to produce ‘a concept’, ‘a functional ideal’, and penultimately the resolve for artistic expression, challenging the juxtaposition between human gesture and computer superiority