Julianna Sanromán Rojas makes paintings and altars as a way of listening—to what remains, to what is carried across borders, to what refuses to disappear. Her work emerges from growing up between places, from loving across distance, and from an understanding that grief does not end but changes shape. Painting becomes a site where memory can rest, where absence is held with tenderness rather than explanation.
She works with materials that already know how to hold time: pigment, fabric, photographs, light, and prayer. Altars enter her practice as living forms—spaces to honor the dead, the deported, the missing, and the still-becoming. These works do not seek to resolve pain, but to sit with it, to say you are remembered. Through layering and translucence, past, present, and future are allowed to coexist.
Guided by ancestral wisdom and Latinx futurism, her work treats imagination not as fantasy but as survival. She looks toward futures where immigrant bodies are not only resilient but rested, where love is uninterrupted by borders, and where care itself is understood as knowledge. Her practice remains in conversation with those who came before and makes space for those still to come—offering art as a quiet site for grief, love, and continued dreaming.
Julianna Sanroman Rojas is a multidisciplinary artist based in Detroit, working between painting, installation, and community-based altar practices. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Practice from the College for Creative Studies, where she received the Imre J. Molnar Artistic Achievement Award, and is currently a graduate candidate at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design. Her work has been exhibited widely across Detroit and internationally, including MOCAD, The Scarab Club, Detroit Artist Market, Galerie Camille, Playground Detroit, and Gallery Omnibus in Dresden, Germany. In 2024, she presented her solo exhibition What Lived and Died Between Us at Playground Detroit.
Sanroman Rojas has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies, including the Playground Detroit Emerging Artist Fellowship, the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation Post-Baccalaureate Residency, Visionary Resistance Fellowship and Casa Lu Sur in Mexico City (2026). Her work has been featured in collaboration with the University of Nagoya and the Japanese government on research addressing deportation.
CV
College for Creative Studies
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Department of Art Practice
Graduate Candidate
University of Michigan Stamps
Selected Exhibitions
2026 Posters to Melt Ice, Swords into Plowshares, Detroit, Mi
2025 People are Strange, Galerie Camille, Detroit, Mi
2025 Muerte a la Distancia, The Voyeur Bordello, Detroit, Mi
2025 Water, Northwest Gallery of Art, Detroit, Mi
2025 Sanctuary, Swords into Plowshares, Detroit, Mi
2025 SOMETHING HOT, Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2025 Carino, Mexicantown Community Development, Detroit, MI
2025 Girlhood, MOCAD, Detroit, MI
2025 Los Angeles Fundraiser, Playground Detroit, MI
2024 Abstraction, Gallery Omnibus, Dresden, Germany
2024 Transmitir, Vamonos, Detroit, MI
2024 In the Beginning, The Scarab Club, Midtown Detroit, MI
2024 Student Scholarship Show, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
2024 Sovereignty, Garage Cultural, Detroit, MI
2024 Vuelta, Vamonos, Detroit, MI
2024 Taking Care, Herman Kiefer Hospital, Detroit, MI
2024 College for Creative Studies Student Exhibition, CCS, Detroit, MI
2024 More Than Today's Tomorrow, 333 Midland, Detroit, MI
2024 Gilda Snowden Memorial Show, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2024 A11eviate, Mexicantown CDC Galeria, Detroit, MI
2024 Niños De Primavera, Rivers Edge Gallery, Wyandotte, MI
2024 Cariño, Vamonos, Detroit, MI
2024 Querencia, Garage Cultural, Detroit, MI
2024 SDBA Atrium, Detroit, MI
2024 Art Prize, Monroe Community Church, Grand Rapids, MI
2024 Plein Air Challenge Exhibition, Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2024 Art of BasBlue, Detroit, MI
2024 Solo Show, Motor City Brewing Works, Detroit, MI
2024 Nest: A Reflection of Safe Spaces, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, MI
2024 Memories & Dreams, Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2024 Solo Exhibition "What Lived and Died Between Us", Playground Detroit, Detroit, MI
2024 Cambiada, Vamonos, Detroit, MI
2024 GCIR Art Show, Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit, MI
2023 Center Gallery, Detroit, MI
2023 Resonance | Reverence, Gallery Camille, Detroit, MI
2023 Art of BasBlue, Detroit, MI
2023 When Care is An Art, Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
2022 Poor Man's Art Collection, The Gallery at Brewery Park, Detroit, MI
2022 Art Prize, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI
2022 Rooted and Cloudy, U245, Detroit, MI
2021 In Retrospect, The HUB Gallery, Detroit, MI
2021 La Gatita Amable, Bagley Central, Detroit, MI
Awards
2024 Imre J. Molnar Artistic Achievement Award
2023 B&E Ford Scholarship
2022 Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors Scholarship
2022 WCEJ Thornton Foundation Music and Art Scholarship
2022 James Banton Endowment Scholarship, College for Creative Studies
2021 Dean’s Award Scholarship, College for Creative Studies
Residencies
2026 Casa Lu Sur, Mexico City
2026 Visionary Resistance Fellowship
2024 Center of Gravity Residency, Walkaway House, North Adams, MA
2024 Playground Detroit Emerging Artist Fellow
2024/2025 Modern Ancient Brown Foundation Post-Baccalaureate Resident
2023 Common Grounds Cooperative Mural Residency
2022 Inside Southwest Summer Residency
Commission
2025 City Walls Detroit Yellow Brick Road
2025 La Joya Garden Murals
2025 18th street Mural for AGI
2025 Mural for Pathway Academy Detroit
2024 Smart Bus Design for Hispanic Heritage Month
Performance
2024 Taking Care, Herman Kiefer Hospital, Detroit, MI
Lectures
2024 University of Michigan: Art and Activism, Ann Arbor, MI
Selected Publications
2025 Research with the University of Nagoya and Japanese Government on Deportation
2024 Artists showcased at Southwest Detroit Business Association's HQ, Axios Detroit
2024 NPR Stateside Podcast: Detroit artist paints the pain of deportation
2024 Suboart Magazine, December Edition
2022 Marigold, anthology edited by Alexandra Virginia Martin, Anhelo Anhelo
2021 Marigold, anthology edited by Alexandra Virginia Martin, Anhelo Anhelo
2020 Hey, I'm Alive Magazine, Issues 1, 2, & 5, edited by Kyra Stemplinger