Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
16x20
2026
Even If Only in Sleep
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
16x20
2026
speaking my name the way you speak to a bird you hope will land gently, with both hands open.
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
16x20
2026
My body remembers you
Te puedes quedar más tiempo en el sueño
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with my Mother On Canvas
8x8
2026
Lo que queda somos nosotras
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
30x40
2026
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
16x20
2026
My body remembers you
Oil Paint, Food Dye Colored Rice from Altar Made with
my Mother On Canvas
30x40
2026
born again
oil and oil pastels on canvas
16x20
2025
(sold)
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
16x20
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
8x8
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
8x8
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
8x8
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
oil and oil pastels on canvas
11x17
2025
on fabric
nfs
2025
on fabric
nfs
2025
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
10 × 13 in | 25.4 × 33 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
16 1/2 × 12 in | 41.9 × 30.5 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
12 1/2 × 22 1/2 in | 31.8 × 57.2 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
22 × 13 in | 55.9 × 33 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar.12 × 22 in | 30.5 × 55.9 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
12 1/2 × 22 in | 31.8 × 55.9 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
9 × 14 in | 22.9 × 35.6 cm
Frame included
2024
Sold
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
18 × 12 in | 45.7 × 30.5 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
9 1/2 × 13 in | 24.1 × 33 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
22 × 14 in | 55.9 × 35.6 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and Acrylic on Mylar
5 1/2 × 9 in | 14 × 22.9 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
18 × 12 in | 45.7 × 30.5 cm
Frame included
2024
Ink and acrylic on Mylar
19 1/2 × 9 in | 49.5 × 22.9 cm
Frame included
2024
Julianna Sanromán Rojas creates paintings and altars that explore memory, migration, and grief. Her work emerges from experiences of living between places and loving across distance, where absence is held with care rather than resolved. She works with materials such as pigment, fabric, photographs, and light, layering them to construct visual spaces that are both intimate and expansive. Her altars function as living sites—spaces that honor the dead, the deported, and the missing—allowing these presences to remain active rather than forgotten. Guided by ancestral knowledge and Latinx futurism, her practice is rooted in care and remembrance as acts of resistance. Through this work, she creates space to imagine more just and restful futures.
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.
Curriculum Vitae
Julianna Sanromán
B.1998
EDUCATION
Present
MFA in Studio Art,
University of Michigan STAMPS School of Art and Design,
Ann Arbor, Michigan
2024
BFA, Studio Art and Crafts
College for Creative Studies, Detroit MI
Valedictorian
COLLECTIONS
University of Michigan Museum of Art, UMMA, Ann Arbor MI
Henry Ford Health Art Collection, Detroit, MI
RESIDENCIES & FELLOWSHIPS
2026 Casa Lu Sur, Mexico City, Mexico
Visionary Resistance Fellowship, Detroit Mi
2024 Post-Baccalaureate Resident, Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, Detroit Mi
Emerging Artist Fellow, Playground Detroit, Detroit, Mi
Center of Gravity Residency, Walkaway House, North Adams, MA
2023 Common Grounds Cooperative Mural Residency, Traverse City, Mi
2022 Inside Southwest Summer Residency, Detroit, Mi
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026 Where We Still Meet, Detroit Artist Market,Detroit,Mi
2024 What Lived and Died Between Us, Playground DetroitDetroit, Detroit, Mi
COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS
2026 Gilda Snowden Memorial Show, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
Detroit Artist Market x Wasserman Projects, Bas Blue,Detroit, Mi
We Ran Toward Each Other, Stamps MFA First Year Exhibition, Ann Arbor, Mi
2025 SOMETHING HOT, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
Water, Norwest Gallery, Detroit, Mi
Sanctuary, Swords into Plowshares, Detroit, Mi
People Are Strange, Galerie Camille, Detroit, Mi
Muerte A la Distancia,The Voyeur Bordello, Detroit, Mi
‘Remember Me Loving You’, Short Film SW Fest, Detroit, Mi
Cariño, Mexicantown Community Development, Detroit, Mi
Girlhood, MOCAD,Detroit, MI
Los Angeles Fundraiser, Playground Detroit, Detroit, Mi
2024 Abstraction, Gallery Omnibus, Dresden, Germany
Transmitir, Vamonos, Detroit, Mi
In the Beginning, The Scarab Club, Detroit, Mi
Student Scholarship Show, Detroit Artist Market, Detroit, Mi
Sovereignty, Garage Cultural, Detroit, Mi
Vuelta, Vamonos, Detroit, Mi
Taking Care, Herman Kiefer Hospital, Detroit, Mi
CCS Student Exhibition, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Mi
More Than Today’s Tomorrow, 333 Midland, Detroit, Mi
Gilda Snowden Memorial Show, Scarab Club, Detroit, Mi
A11eviate, Mexicantown Community Development, Detroit, Mi
2023 Art of Bas Blue, Bas Blue X Wasserman Projects, Detroit, Mi
When Care is An Art, The Scarab Club, Detroit, Mi
2022 Poor Man's Art Collection, The Gallery at Brewery Park, Detroit, Mi
Art Prize, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, Mi
Rooted and Cloudy, U245, Detroit, Mi
2021 In Retrospect, The HUB Gallery, Detroit, Mi
La Gatita Amable, Bagley Central, Detroit, Mi
Invited Talks
2025 Living with What Remains: Art, Erasure, and Futurity, Latino Research Week, Ann Arbor,
Mi
2024 Art and Activism, Greenhills School, Ann Arbor, MI
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
2026 Dreaming in Layers: A collage workshop, Hosted University Outreach Council, Ann Arbor
Workshop Facilitator, Community-Based Art Workshops at Vamonos, Detroit, Mi
2025 Center of Music & Performing Arts Southwest, COMPÁS Lead Art Instructor, Detroit, Mi
2022 Youth Development Specialist, Detroit Hispanic Development Corp, Detroit, Mi
2015 Youth Mural Project Team Leader, Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, Mi
AWARDS & HONORS
2025
Center for Education Women, Elise Choy Lee Scholar, University of Michigan
Rackham Merit Fellowship, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mi
WCEJ Thornton Foundation Music & Art Scholarship
2024
Imre J. Molnar Artistic Achievement Award, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Mi
2023
B&E Ford Scholarship, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Mi
2022
Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors Scholarship, Detroit Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Detroit, Mi
WCEJ Thornton Foundation Music & Art Scholarship
James Banton Endowment Scholarship, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, Mi
2021
Dean’s Award Scholarship, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, M
COMMISSIONS
Murals
2025 Yellow Brick Wall, City Walls Detroit, Detroit, Mi
La Joya Garden Apartments, Southwest Detroit, Mi
AGI Construction, Southwest Detroit, Mi
Pathways Academy Charter School, Detroit, Mi
2024 SMART Bus Design, Hispanic Heritage Month, Troy, Mi
PERFORMANCES
2024 Dance for Coyolxauhqui, Herman Kiefer Hospital, Detroit, MI
COMMUNITY ENGAGED PUBLICATIONS
2026 The Grief of Remembering the Absent One, The Deported One, El Central, Detroit, Mi
Artist Honor Southwest Detroit’s Grief Over Deportations with Community Altars, Planet Detroit, Detroit, Mi
Memory Is A Border I Keep Crossing, Lulu books
Detroit Residents Honor Detained Loved Ones, The Metro, Detroit, Mi
2025 Deportation Internal Sociology, University of Nagoya, Japan
2024 Artist Showcased, Axios Detroit, Detroit, Mi
Detroit Artist Paints the Pain of Deportation, Michigan Public NPR, Detroit, Mi
#33 December 2024, Suboart Magazine, Barcelona, Spain
2022 Marigold Anthology, Anhelo Anhelo, Detroit, Mi
Issue 2&3, Hey, I'm Alive MagazinE, San Francisco, California
A pattern that refused to disappear,
imagining futures for immigrants that move beyond survival—futures filled with rest, joy, and belonging. so much of our existence has been defined by systems that make our personhood feel conditional, our presence negotiable. through painting and altar-making, i want to give into my dreams and imagine a world where we can simply be—where living, resting, and loving are enough.
thank you to my mother, Emma, for doing the rice carpet with me. to see her have fun and play with color was like waking up to sunlight every day.
i lost myself years ago, that i hesitated to start again. to try to find myself again. afraid to begin. my grief continued to pass be me. My pain is that of a child at night. I sing and I’m afraid. I love you and I am afraid and I will never tell you with my true voice, this slow sad lonely voice. That’s why I write to you in a language you don’t know. You will never read me and you will never know about my love my loss the years i stood still in fear. i live to remember there’s is not enough time in this world to forget. i remember my mother and the way she would walk me in the same places i stood still in these shoes. i remember my father and his smell. i won’t forget the way the sun sets at the mountain and how my father and i watch the village as he shares stories how my brother and him stood there in the same shadows. i won’t forget the trees my parents planted for each one of us specifically and how they chose mine because the leave shine even without sun. i will never forget the mountains even if i cry. i traveled light years and life times to meet you again. i use to pray that we met together in a better life. while i have this one for as i exist, you will always be loved.
Altars for Collective Grief is a community-based, care-centered project honoring people who are still alive yet living with absence—through deportation, separation, displacement, incarceration, illness, or other forms of forced distance.
This work creates temporary and ongoing altars as acts of remembrance, resistance, and love. Each altar is shaped in collaboration with participants, guided by consent, memory, and the everyday details that make a person who they are.
We understand grief not as something to be resolved, but as something to be held together.