Detroit Stockholm. Roslagsgatan 21 11355 Stockholm
https://detroitstockholm.info @detroit_stockholm

Statement

For me, Detroit Gallery has always felt like a Hålrum: a deep hollow within the building. For this show, I wanted to play with that architectural peculiarity and transform it into a prehistoric cave, like those in which, thousands of years ago, our ancestors sheltered, gathered, exchanged, and lived together — a place of encounter. I am fascinated by the aesthetic manifestations they left behind: their majestic and solemn presence in the landscape, or the sacred traces carved into the rock.

Hålrum is an artistic intervention that creates two separate spaces: the external urban world and the internal enclosed space of the gallery. Through a combination of painting, drawing, and sculpture, the viewer follows a path that takes them away from everyday life and into a symbolism-charged environment. Like an initiation ritual or a liminal process, Hålrum is an invitation to remain in a place where ritual can happen — not only as a performative action, but also as an introspective experience. It is an encounter with the intangible side that makes us human: the realm where ideas, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts reside. Everything that has made us, makes us, and will continue to make us unique, and at the same time, equals.

Juanma González

Skogen

Wood and sticks, 38x45cm

Skogen means “the forest” in Swedish. The work was placed at the entrance of the exhibition space, like a map pointing the way towards the room deep in the forest, where the visitor can encounter the ancestral site: a magical cavern hidden in the earth.
see more

Märken

Perforated hunting-tower canvas , 142x165cm

Our ancestors were hunters, and much of their symbolic system of representation revolved around that fact. In the sky, they saw animals and the great hunter drawn among the stars. Märket means “the sign” in Swedish. In the context of Hålrum, the work stands at the entrance to the sacred cave — a marker, a threshold between worlds. see more

Handen

Wood, acrylic and glue, 68x39cm

Handen means “the hand” in Swedish. The hand engraved on prehistoric caves was the first portrait of humankind — a trace of presence, a gesture of self-awareness left on stone.
see more

Domarringen

Wood, acrylic, fabric and iron ring, 250x200x250cm

A suspended installation consisting of five double-sided paintings hanging from the ceiling, allowing viewers to circulate around them. Each painting depicts a monolith inscribed with ancestral symbols. An iron ring at the centre anchors the installation, evoking notions of ritual, continuity, and spiritual orientation. The work references prehistoric stone circles and ritual architectures, creating a spatialized tableau that invites viewers into a symbolic and meditative enclosure.
see more


watch video

JUANMA GONZÁLEZ
(SV/ES)

  • ARTIST BIO

    Juanma González is a Spanish artist based in Botkyrka, Sweden. His practice combines experimental and traditional approaches —drawing, photography, site-specific installation, performance, and artistic intervention. For over ten years, his research has centered on walking as a practice of knowledge and artistic production. Interested in notions of normality in everyday contexts, González creates situations where new meanings can emerge. He conceives walking as a device to interact with space and to facilitate extraordinary experiences for audiences.

    He studied historical photographic techniques at Universidad Europea (Madrid, 1999) and graduated in Fine Arts from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2013). In 2016, he received his MFA degree from the Royal Institute of Art (KKH), Stockholm. His artistic education has continued through postgraduate programs, including Research_LAB at KKH (2017), Sites and Situations at Konstfack (2018), Site and Participant at Dramatiska Högskolan (2020), and The Photographic Artist’s Book: Performing Sustainability at KKH (2022). González also integrates his walking practice into teaching. For the Royal Institute of Art he has coordinated and led two workshops: a study-trip to Madrid (2019) and a one-day workshop inspired by the studiecirkel format (2020). In 2022, he taught at Murcia’s Art School (Spain).

    His work has been exhibited internationally in Los Angeles, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Armenia, and Spain. González is member of the international artist- and curator-run collective Flat Octopus and part of the NKF (The Nordic Art Association) board.

  • ARTIST STAMENT

    I am interested in the immaterial reality of the human being: that which is intangible yet defines our individual and collective way of understanding the world. My art consists of creating encounters where the viewer can transcend the everyday and connect with the symbolic, the spiritual, and the ancestral. In my work, depending on the context of the place where it is created, Iemploy various means of expression—drawing, installation, text, performance— while walking serves as the central axis of my artistic practice. I understand walking not merely as a physical displacement, but as a ritual, performative, and poetic gesture that opens the possibility of new forms of aesthetic experience and of relationship with the environment.