HANNA KRATSMAN ROBLES : A LABOR OF LOVE
March 7, 2026 - April 4, 2026
Press Release
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(Dallas) Ro2 Art presents A Labor of Love, Hanna Kratsman Robles’ third solo exhibition with the gallery—an exhibition that reframes love not as spectacle, but as a practice: quiet, daily, and enduring. Rooted in the phrase “¡Pero me lo haces con ganas!” (a childhood refrain that once stung, now reclaimed as catalyst), these works honor the sustaining labor that holds a life together: the care embedded in cleaning, crafting, cooking, mending, and remembering. Moving between painting and text, Kratsman Robles demystifies the role of the artist by insisting on artistry where it is most often overlooked—within repetition, within upkeep, within the intimate gestures through which devotion becomes visible.
Her scenes unfold in spaces charged with poetry and magical realism: domestic interiors, personalized décor, and imagined environments that absorb the emotional weather of the people who inhabit them. Here, objects carry generational weight; rooms retain tenderness and responsibility; and language arrives as imprint—something spoken, overheard, or left behind. Shaped canvases extend this logic through absence, focusing on spaces without figures yet still marked by human presence, where the residue of touch and routine becomes the subject. Across the exhibition, magical realism functions not as ornament but as a tool for honoring what cannot be fully named: the ways memory, history, and the everyday coexist, and the way inherited tenderness is often carried quietly—revealed, finally, as a labor of love. |
Artist sTATEMENT
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“¡Pero me lo haces con ganas!”
Una frase que odiaba de niña, se volvió en mi motivación para estas piezas. Pensé en todas las cosas que nuestros queridos hacen con ganas, y los pequeños labores hechos con amor son lo que sostienen la vida cotidiana. A Labor of Love demystifies the role of the artist by highlighting the artistry in everyday acts performed with care. The works in this exhibition attend to the quiet, often unseen gestures through which people show devotion to one another, to spaces, and to the rituals of daily life. Rather than presenting love as spectacle, these works linger in its labor. The works in this exhibition attend to quiet, often unseen gestures through which people express devotion. These scenes occupy spaces infused with poetry and magical realism, where domestic interiors, personalized decor, and imagined environments are infused with the complex emotions of the people who inhabit the spaces. These spaces carry generational baggage, habits, and emotional weight embedded into the objects touched by the figures in the scene. Poetry and image coexist, each holding fragments of memory, emotion, and presence. The written words appear as an imprint: something spoken, overheard, or left behind. Las historias de mi abuela dejan su huella en mi almohada. Siento su mano en la costura del pijama de mi amado. Las palabras y pensamientos se vuelven parte de los espacios y objetos que nos rodean, cargando las emoticones de los que lo habitan. Esta exposición explora cómo el realismo mágico puede ser usado para mostrar el poder de la decisión de hacer las cosas con amor y cuidado. Shaped canvases extend this exploration by focusing on spaces without figures, yet still marked by human presence. They examine how absence can hold as much emotional residue as presence. How rooms, fabrics, and domestic surfaces retain tenderness, repetition, and responsibility. Magical realism becomes a tool for honoring what cannot be fully seen or named: the emotional weight carried by spaces shaped through care, repetition, and attention. This use of magical realism functions as the representation of the inescapable beauty of Latin American literature and culture, where memory, history, and the everyday coexist. Where inherited responsibility and tenderness are often carried quietly. Un Laburo de Amor muestra la forma en que las penas, consejos y cuidados de nuestros parientes quedan escritos en las paredes de la cocina donde intentamos (a veces con fallo) a replicar las recetas de nuestra niñez. Throughout the exhibition, love is framed not as a singular moment but as an accumulation of actions such as cleaning, crafting, cooking, and mindlessly remembering. The labor embedded in these acts mirrors the labor of making itself. Painting, writing, and shaping become parallel processes of care, each requiring patience, intimacy, and belief in the value of what might otherwise be overlooked. A Labor of Painting has been done to show admiration for all things done with effort to seek connection, community, and self-care. It is, simply, A Labor of Love.” |
