Ro2 Art

On Juneteenth, we return to a powerful conversation conducted by Ro2 Art via Zoom on August 3, 2023, in conjunction with Lillian Young’s exhibition, The Problem with Archives: A Portrait Is Worth Our Words.

Presented as a companion exhibition to The Runways, the show honored Black elders through portraiture, testimony, and memory. Among those included was Opal Lee, the Grandmother of Juneteenth, whose portrait was on view at Ro2 Art.

In conversation with Young, Ms. Opal reflected on history, education, and her 1,400-mile walk toward Washington, D.C., a symbolic journey honoring the two-and-a-half years it took for news of emancipation to reach enslaved people in Texas.

As she reminds us: “Juneteenth freed the people. The Fourth of July freed the land.”

The message still echoes: history is not distant. It lives in elders, archives, stories, silences, and the responsibility to carry truth forward.

If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love.

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The paintings of ‘Broken Lullabies’ by Yuliya Lanina are populated by remixed, distorted and hybrid figures that are part human, part object, and part plant. The exhibition moves between humor and discomfort, fantasy and psychological reality as watchful flowers and fragmented bodies create a dreamlike world shaped by the emotional logic of memory and the inner child. Rather than functioning as literal narratives, the works operate as emotional and psychological states, reflecting the fragmented and shifting ways we carry experiences within ourselves.

'Broken Lullabies' now on view through June 13.
📍 Ro2 Art– 2606 Bataan Street, Dallas

Upcoming: Artist Talk with Yuliya Lanina, June 4 6PM

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