At a time when meeting friends often feels reduced to the ritual of “catching up”, when real presence is increasingly rare, A.L.M.A. (meaning SOUL) appears as a quiet but necessary reflection on intimacy. On what it means to truly be with one another.
The project by Javier González de Castejón, or simply Javo as his friends call him, is far more than a series of portraits. It feels like a testimony to a kind of friendship that seems harder and harder to find today. Something raw, tender and deeply honest. Through a gaze that deliberately moves away from eroticism and toward vulnerability, Javo presents a form of nakedness that speaks less about bodies without clothes and more about souls revealed.
In his black and white paintings, the body becomes a map. A map of relationships, of trust, of the space shared between the artist and the people around him. The act of posing transforms into something intimate and collaborative, almost like a quiet agreement between friends. A moment where vulnerability becomes a form of freedom.
The exhibition takes place in a former art and Design School on Claudio Coello Street in Madrid, a setting that slowly transforms into something closer to a private sanctuary. Within this space, the bed appears again and again as a symbol of awakening and childhood. Using the very mattresses he slept on as a child, the artist gestures toward the possibility of returning to a place of protection, of safety, of refuge.
That same sense of protection resonates in the final portrait of his friend Clara. Placed opposite the rest of the works, framed in gold and standing out as the only painting rendered in color, it feels almost like the emotional center of the exhibition. A piece that gathers everything that came before it and holds it gently.
The recurring presence of the horse adds another layer to the story. It moves through the series as a symbol of instinct, of something wild and untamed. A force that feels powerful and difficult to control, yet at the same time strangely protective, almost maternal.
In this project, nakedness is not about aesthetics or provocation. It becomes a gesture of trust. These bodies are not simply exposed, they are sheltered. They hold stories, memories, fears and affection. They reveal something deeper than skin.
Credits
Portrait by Marta Guardiet
Images by Daniel Santiago
