Exhibitions
Juana González unleashes the wild power of painting
Juana González's painting delves into a territory where reality is distorted, dreams erupt into the everyday, and images defy definitive interpretation. Her contorted figures, scenes with theatrical resonances, and compositions of great visual intensity construct a universe where desire, the irrational, and the enigmatic coexist. With Indómita pintura (Untamed Painting) , the artist brings this exploration and museum journey to CentroCentro in Madrid, in a project that expands her language beyond the canvas through drawings and sculptural and installation pieces.
Although González has been dedicated to painting for several decades, her work has sparked increasing interest in recent years, especially since her exhibition at the Sala Robayera in Miengo in 2021. Her works have become part of collections such as those of the Madrid City Council and the Solo Collection, in recognition of a practice that combines a powerful expressive energy with a personal view of art history.
His universe blends the paintings of Neo Rauch and the neo-expressionist approaches of Jörg Immendorff, along with a profound fascination for the Baroque. Velázquez, Titian, Goya, Rubens, and El Greco reappear, transformed by an imagination that decontextualizes and recombines them with absolute freedom. To these influences are added the cinematic surrealism of Luis Buñuel and the unsettling atmospheres of David Lynch, which contribute to shaping scenes where narrative logic gives way to subconscious associations.
González's relationship with tradition is far from reverential. In a 2020 work, the artist portrays herself as a semi-nude huntress who bursts into a museum to appropriate the classical pieces she desires. The image encapsulates an attitude of insubordination toward the canon: the great masters cease to be untouchable figures and become the subject of a creative appropriation that questions hierarchies and reclaims the right to reinterpret the past.
Uncertainty is another central theme in her painting. In 2023, during her exhibition at the Espacio Mínimo gallery, González defended mystery as an essential condition of the artistic experience. "I'm interested in uncertainty from an irrational and subconscious perspective, because this is the terrain where the scenes I paint emerge," she stated. For her, uncertainty keeps the possibilities of interpretation open and prevents the viewer's gaze from being trapped in a single meaning. Her images don't offer definitive answers: they propose situations that stimulate the imagination and allow each viewer to construct their own interpretation.
Since her series Constructoras (2012-2013), the artist has demonstrated a remarkable ability to explore the tensions between reason and imagination, as well as the possibilities of female rebellion. Her monumental paintings and drawings give form to scenes of magical resonance, bodies undergoing transformations, and realities that seem to teeter on the edge of recognizability. They echo Goya's "dreams of reason," but also a contemporary desire to question visual conventions and make visible unresolved desires, conflicts, and impulses.
In Indomitable Painting , this exploration extends to the exhibition space. Alongside large-format canvases and drawings, sculptural and installation interventions allow visitors to delve into what curator Fernando Castro Flórez, a collaborator with bonart, defines as a 'stratigraphy of his imagination'. The very material of the paintings takes center stage: the remnants of paint accumulated on the palette are transformed into a unique miniature landscape, while the contortions of the human figure reveal the tensions that permeate his universe. The result oscillates between Baroque exuberance and a sensibility akin to post-surrealism.
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