Opening Day - What We Left Unsaid

Nadia Awad's "What We Left Unsaid" opened today, with the added bonus of a visit from the artist herself, all the way from New York! Admirers expressed enthusiasm for both the concept and the drawings (which one visitor referred to as "unique and beautiful"). Again, contact us if you'd like to arrange a visit to the gallery to see the work in person, and continue to visit the website to see more images from the show.

About the show:

I read Kafka’s The Zurau Aphorisms while in Ramallah, Palestine. Kafka’s efforts to imagine metaphysical alibis for failed systems and his faith in the body’s Sisyphean resistance to such systems resonated deeply with me. Often, I felt as though Kafka was narrating my experiences at checkpoints, finding apartments, and walking through Jerusalem.

The title reflects my aesthetic intention for the work. First, the drawings represent an impossible dialogue with Kafka, who never traveled to Palestine. Second, for each work, my goal was to imagine an image from which the aphorism is derived and, not vice versa. The drawings do not function as illustrations of each aphorism, but as visual counterpoints.

About the artist:

I am a visual artist whose work explores the way meaning is generated through language, especially in historical narratives, material culture, and news media. Recent work includes a video series - School, Court, and Demonstration. Shot in a cinema-verite style in Yaffa, Ramallah, and Petah Tikva, the series subtly underscores the theatrical and performative aspects of ‘citizenship’ within a state. This series can be viewed on vimeo at http://vimeo.com/10832432.

My work has been shown at the Apache Café, Bushwick Open Studios, the Samuel J. Sacks Gallery, and Iraqi Civilian Memorial Project at the Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery. I grew up in Florida.