Bio

Sandy Gray studied dance and theatre at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and has had an extensive career in film and video. Gray's relationship with photography began over 30 years ago while working as a print model. She has been photographed for major advertising campaigns by such greats as Peter Lindbergh, Peggy Sirota, and Elliott Erwitt. While modeling in New York, she got behind the camera, aiming for a different perpective. While attending The International Center of Photography, the response to Gray's street photographs encouraged her to explore further. A trip to Cuba to photograph the 40th Anniversary of the Revolution resulted in her first solo exhibition held at El Taller Latino Americano in New York City titled, "CUBA, El Primero de Enero", images of a country and it's people during a special moment in history. Her Cuba photos were also included in "The New Toltecas en Aztlan" exhibit at Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, San Diego. Gray is a collaborator on an underwater photography book project, "La Sirena" exploring the myth of the mermaid and shot in the Cayman Islands, Mexico, Hawaii and Catalina Island. Two of Gray's self-portrait images were included in the group exhibition, "Fuck Pretty" at the Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. Discovered by curator Angela Featherstone, newcomer Gray was thrilled to have her photos exhibited next to those by Susan Meiselas, Catherine Opie and others. In her art ltd. review of the show Shana Nys Dambrot wrote, "An Intuitive sensibility links aging female bodies and run-down playgrounds in a spiral of decrepit spectacle that is both bitter and sweet; Sandy Gray's Showgirl, Las Vegas, Nevada comes closest to fusing this iconography into a single frame." Gray continues with her long-term self-portrait series, exploring gender, aging, and female archetypes and stereotypes - themes which sprang from a desire to expose other identities often eclipsed by the model/actor persona presented to the world.