New to Ro2

Edgar cano, catherine cornelius, jd moore, cat rigdon, brantly sheffield, & lillian young: new to ro2

February 19 - March 19, 2022

Press Release

On the heels of Ro2 Art’s 12th Anniversary, the gallery is pleased to announce the representation of six new artists: Edgar Cano. Catherine Cornelius. JD Moore, Cat Rigdon, Brantly Sheffield, and Lillian Young. In celebration of the new arrivals to the gallery, Ro2 Art is proud to present New to Ro2, an exhibition featuring the works of the six artists. The show will run from February 19 through March 19, 2022, with an opening reception held at Ro2 Art in The Cedars, located at 1501 S. Ervay St, Dallas, TX, 75215 from 7-10PM.

artist statements

Edgar Cano: Figurative Preciousness in the proceeding, not in essence; the body is the axis of my strokes, with its roots and fictions invented in its own drama. The events of ordinary life get expanded through the pigmented micro-mirror of the canvas; the painting, as a surface of reflection, reproduces the intersection of interpretation and personal experience, becomes the support for metaphors, unfinished speeches, and theoretical alloys that complement each other only by being in front of the observer. I use irony and the lack of sense of things to create a reflection that converges with the visual heritage of modern society.

Catherine Cornelius: My preoccupation with objects… their forms, historical references, and what they can become as art is the impetus of my work. I am also interested in the female gender role, its psyche, and states of being in relation to experience, interactions and trauma. The work involves capturing the essence of an object in a clay facsimile and combining it with other objects and imagery, either found or made, to create a narrative or beg a question. I look for dualities in these compositions to impose contradictions and meaningful tension. My methodology is an intuitive process that evolves in the making. It typically begins with a form executed in clay. Next comes glaze. Then a collage of several layers of ceramic decals. Pieces are usually fired 4-6 times and a new starting point is realized with each firing. Plans are scrapped, decisions change, new information is added. Content emerges and the dialog between myself and the work continues until we have both said enough. I do not always have the last word.

JD Moore: I noticed my portrait and realism artwork didn't reflect the faces/features of my community. In conjunction with this realization, my paintings, "World Of Forms" and "World of Being" were a result of the highly publicized killings of Freddie Grey, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Sandra Bland. I made the decision to primarily paint people of color, to not only cope with the traumatic images being shown on the internet and tv, but also to feel like I was contributing to changing the way black men and women are seen. An important element of this decision was to utilize real people as opposed to making faces from my imagination, thus the foundation of collaboration in my process was laid. Continuing to collaborate with models to make art, I expanded my outreach to authors by studying non fiction books dealing mostly with history. After I read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” I made a photo series depicting chapters in the book which then lead me to read “On The Varieties of Mankind”, a book about the accounts of a German anthropologist, Johann F. Blumenbach, whom contributed to the theory of race. I painted a portrait of Blumenbach which depicts him evaluating skulls and categorizing people across the globe in a hierarchy. In this painting I wanted my model in contemporary fashion to help make this character more relatable, as we are still affected by his work.

Cat Rigdon: My work is in conversation with the ancient dig-site of Enkomi, which is located near war-torn Famagusta in the disputed Republic of Northern Cyprus. While in London this past Summer, I came across a few artifacts from this site at The British Museum. There were so many rarities including gold mouth diadems. Rude-Style ceramics, and beaked lady votives. These objects spoke of the island’s complicated past, as it is in a very strategic area of the Mediterranean, and reminded me of my childhood there. I grew up in Greek Southern Cyprus and could not enter the demilitarized UN Green Zone or the Turkish Northern territory. As a child, the North seemed to be untouchable and mythical, full of relics from a bygone era with fabulous beaches. In 1974, a violent coup d’etat divided the island between Turkish and Greek Cypriot powers, displacing the residents with many remaining missing. Many people in my community had fled from Famagusta and would share their sad tales of the beauty and history from their region. Suddenly, my family emigrated in 2003 to the USA. The whole island seemed to become an unreachable destination like the North was during my childhood years. Using the digitized records and personal images, I have been recreating the site objects in ceramics, watercolor, and with oil on custom-cut acrylic panels. Ultimately, I would be creating a representation of an Enkomi burial site while trying to feel closer to the culture I still haunt.

Brantly Sheffield: My paintings and drawings are portraits of people in familiar social settings that fluctuate between memorable to forgettable. A documented moment acts as a roadmap for a drawing to structure information in my own way. I use paint to create an access point to a sense of universal familial bonds through saturated fields of color and geometric patterning that are indicative of familiar textures. The subjects are personal. They range from the people I know, to memorable events, and forgotten moments. Painting helps bridge the gap between the extremely personal and the universally familiar through the history of art. Eye contact helps too. It makes you apart of its space. As if you could know subject. I work with documented moments because it allows me to structure information in my own way through fields of color. I break down the subject into geometric forms through line, then I use saturated fields of color to create a geometric pattern that is indicative of the anatomy of the drawing and my memory of the moment in response to the material that guide how I delineate space. I believe that the totality of the materials creates an access point to a sense of universal familial bonds specific to each painting.

Lillian Young: My art focuses on highlighting people, moments, and objects centered around the Black Experience that are left out of mainstream narrative. I want my art to be a starting point for people to have those uncomfortable conversations about issues that are considered taboo to discuss. As our country changes it is important for us to remember our history so that we can learn from our mistakes.

about the artists

Edgar Cano: In more than fifteen years of art production, he has been distinguished and awarded in various national and international competitions, among these: Acquisition prize of the III Biennial of Visual Arts of Veracruz (2016) two-dimensional category, acquisition prize of the XVII Biennial of Painting Rufino Tamayo (2016), the award for the IX Biennial of Painting Alfredo Zalce (2014), the award for the IV Biennial of the Southeast in Chiapas (2005), finalist in the I International Biennial of Drawing in Tijuana (2006), prize for the XVII José Guadalupe Posada National Engraving Contest (2010), selected twice by the Takeda Biennial (2008 and 2012), among other mentions. He has obtained multiple scholarships, in the state of Veracruz for PECDA (2005 and 2009), the FONCA Young Creators scholarship (2010 and 2012), and at the end of 2014, he became a Member of the National System of Art Creators of FONCA (SNCA) in the discipline of visual arts with a specialty in painting, again selected in the edition 2021-2024. In 2018, he received the distinction from the FONCA Promotion and Co-investment Program to carry out the exhibition El Centro Único of his authorship.

Catherine Cornelius: Catherine Cornelius is a ceramic and mixed media artist. She graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She began her art education in the early 90’s alongside working in the corporate world. A studio practice began in 2000 and in 2016 she retired from her company enabling her to fully focus on art. Her art education includes Brookhaven College, the Craft Guild of Dallas, and Penland School of Crafts. In 2020 she was selected into The Cedars Union, Dallas Tx, Cohort 2 program. She is currently represented by Ro2 Art Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

JD Moore: I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and have been working as a full time artist in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since 2013. I began to seriously pursue a career in studio art in 2017. My shared studio space was located at the Basement Gallery, before we moved to Elevate Studios, in Oak Cliff, Tx. Continuing to collaborate with models to make art, I expanded my outreach to authors by studying non fiction books dealing mostly with history. After I read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” I made a photo series depicting chapters in the book which then lead me to read “On The Varieties of Mankind”, a book about the accounts of a German anthropologist, Johann F. Blumenbach, whom contributed to the theory of race. I painted a portrait of Blumenbach which depicts him evaluating skulls and categorizing people across the globe in a hierarchy. In this painting I wanted my model in contemporary fashion to help make this character more relatable, as we are still affected by his work. After realizing that fashion plays an important role in portrait storytelling, I decided to expand my outreach yet again to fashion designers. The Tignon series, featuring cloths worn as a turban headdress by Creole women from Louisiana, produced in collaboration with Chesley Antionette in 2018 help me realize that research; teamwork, and depicting people of color in a constructive manner are elements I want to consistently implement in projects going forward.

Cat Rigdon: Cat Rigdon is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Dallas, Texas. She grew up on the island of Cyprus, the island’s strong folk art and naturalism culture is reflected in Rigdon’s work. She graduated from Texas State University in 2014 and moved to Dallas as a Decorative Arts Junior Specialist and Cataloger for Heritage Auctions. She left the auction house after a serious head injury to pursue a studio-based lifestyle. Her obsessively repetitive works deal with her continuous recovery from the brain injury, the mythology of growing up on the island of Cyprus, and artifacts from being an auction catalogers.

Brantly Sheffield: Brantly Sheffield is a Dallas based artist born October 18th, 1991. He grew up in Edmond Oklahoma. In 2010 he moved to Kansas City Missouri to attend the Kansas City Art Institute. He graduated in 2014 with a BFA in illustration. In 2012 he studied at the Studio Art College International in Florence Italy. He studied fresco painting and art history. Between 2013 and 2017 Brantly was represented by The Late Show art gallery in Kansas City Missouri. In 2015 he moved to Boston Massecuites to attend Boston University’s MFA painting program. He earned his MFA in 2017. He shows his work nationally in curated and juried group exhibitions. Brantly has participated in studio residency programs such as the Cedars Union incubator for the arts. He is currently an adjunct professor of art and represented by Ro2 gallery in Dallas Texas.

Lillian Young: Historical artist Lillian Young attended Texas Christian University where she received her BFA in Studio Art and an emphasis in Art Education. She has always had a passion for history and growing up her family made sure that she was well educated about the struggles, victories, and heroes in Black history. Often history may seem irrelevant but has consequences in how we understand and react to current events. Lillian depicts forgotten or not well known moments from the Black experience, focusing on lesser known black leaders, stories, events and objects that are commonly known by the black communities, but unknown by the general public. In highlighting these moments, Lillian works to make a connection to the social anxiety felt today from the rise in racism, loss of representation, and her own struggle of continuing to fight for equality. Currently she works at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth Texas, and plans to attend Grad school at Michigan State University in the Fall of 2019.