Gabrielle Ondine Mertz is an artist and cultural sector adviser. Her practice as an artist explores data and media structures through the use of technology, painting, printmaking, moving images, and other forms. Drawing on her formal training as a dancer and choreographer, Mertz creates installations, images, and site-specific works that expose and reimagine digital, social, and environmental spaces. Previously the Founder/Artistic Director of Ondine and Company, she has created exhibitions, performances, and site-specific installations on stages, on tour, and on film. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe at the Cultural Center of Krakow, New Museum Ideas City, High Museum, Artists Alliance, International Dance Festival, Rialto Center for the Performing Arts, American Dance Festival, 7Stages, King Plow Arts Center, and The Performance Space, among others. She is the recipient of commissions/awards from the Cultural Olympiad, Rauschenberg Foundation, City of Atlanta, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Georgia Council for the Arts, Center for Puppetry Arts, and Netherland-America Foundation, among others.
Her work on public policy, voter mobilization, NGO strategy, philanthropy, and creative sector issues with campaigns, nonprofit organizations, and international institutions includes The Carter Center, Obama for America, The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Arts for AIDS, Institute for Global Policy, Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and International Rescue Committee, among others. She has overseen partnerships and projects with the National Endowment for the Arts, Kingdom of Sweden, Ford Foundation, Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Sotheby's, Sigrid Rausing Trust, Government of Japan, New York State Council for the Arts, and Matisse Foundation, among many others, and she has secured over $400 million in funding for nonprofit institutions and other entities. She serves as an advisor and on the Leadership Council for Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight. She has served as a board member/on the advisory panel for the Emory University Women’s Center, Brooklyn Arts Council, Bronx Council on the Arts, Atlanta Coalition for the Performing Arts, and Fulton County Arts Council, among many others. She has taught/lectured at New York University, Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Emory University, and Image Film & Video Center, among others.
Mertz is the Founder of Drawing Out The Vote, a voter education campaign that mobilizes turnout through collaboration and coordination with the creative community. DOTV is supported by the ACLU, Open Society Foundation, and Center for Artistic Activism, and works in partnership with local organizations and community groups.