Anna Zorina Gallery is pleased to announce Awkward, a group exhibition curated by Shaun Ellison. The exhibition features eight painters that are united in the pursuit of denying technical conventions of realism. Instinct, direct perception and spontaneous feeling guide each artist’s mark making. This allows for unexpected, and at times, ungraceful elements to emerge from within their subjective conceptions of the world. The impulsiveness with which the artists express their immediate sensations unlocks the potential to portray a perspective that is intimate and unapologetically awkward.

John Bradford – “When, early on, I started painting from my imagination, I gave up the fluid hand that happens when responding to nature and it was difficult. It felt artificial and, yes, awkward. I eventually got back the hand but with texture and rigor added. I also kept the awkward; it felt natural.”

Katherine Bradford - “To paint in an awkward style means a loose handling of paint and a forgiving attitude toward surprise mishaps. Somehow these turn out to be just what we wanted but couldn’t have imagined.” Siro Cugusi – “Awkward relates to the original gesture. I believe the original gesture is the best. It has to do with imprecision, transience, incompleteness and imperfection. Awkward means uncertainty and truth at the same time.”

Shaun Ellison – “Awkward to me means: a vulnerability to the process and an openness to accidents.” William Hawkins – “You paint as you go.”

Paul Housley – “Being awkward I would use the word difficult. It’s a place that lies between desire and attainment. But my foolishness is my own, and belongs to no God, not even the ones of Painting.”

Cristina Lama – “Awkward, in painting, as unifying concept, I think it alludes to an intuitive way of tackling the work, without complexes and with an implicit will to get away from any academic restraint, precepts and dogmas, just responding to fundamentally pictorial guidelines as a nontransferable language.”

Tim Stoner – “I'm not that interested in logic or any level of self deconstruction when I am actually making the work, I feel that painting is a moment, or a series of moments that work when one is unanchored from the rules of style or language.”