On 7 April, at 12 noon., IN-TENSIÓN (INTERNAL TENSION), an exhibition by Gladys Alvarado, will open at the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition features more than fifty photographs, several of which are large-format panoramic images.

After four solo exhibitions, participation in several group shows, and two books on her work, Gladys Alvarado (Lima, 1963) presents this collection featuring many previously unpublished images that partially reconstruct three of her major exhibitions: El Frontón (2009), Lobitos (2012), and La Lima del Metro (2014).

In the presentation text, architect Reynaldo Ledgard points out that “the radical coherence between the point of view and the extremely limited selection of location and subject makes us understand that the artist chooses very precise conditions for choosing the images that constitute a collection. This sense of certainty is sustained in the forcefulness of the chosen theme. From this have emerged the technical and stylistic options used in each case: the definition of the frame, the orientation in which natural light arrives and the general composition, which highlights an artist of great conceptual clarity. This, as well as her determined personality, has always led her to find the precise moment, without relying on chance: as soon as she fixes an image in the lens, she captures the desired photo clearly and unappealable.”

Reynaldo Ledgard believes that, in the case of both El Frontón and Lobitos, a unified yet paradoxical concept emerges: “Clearly, these are places at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of meaning. El Frontón presents a dark, hard, and rocky materiality, where the walls of the ruins seem to merge, under their own weight, with the geological formation. Lobitos, on the other hand, has a luminous and light materiality, where the wooden walls seem to float above the shifting surface of the sand. It is precisely from this opposition that the fundamental meaning of these photographs emerges: the relationship between place and time and the presence of the ruins as impassive witnesses to persistent deterioration.”

Gladys Alvarado Jourde holds a Masters in Documentary Photography, as well as “MALDEFOCO,” a Masters in Contemporary Photography, which was directed by Alejandro Castellote at the Centro de la Imagen in Lima. She has also attended master classes in landscape photography with Jheison Huerta in Tromso, Norway; with Huerta and the Spanish photographer José D. Riquelme in Reykjavík, Iceland; and with José María Mellado in Havana. Additionally, he took a Master Class in Astrophotography in Huaraz. He won second place in the Repsol, Lima Photo contest and was a finalist in the RM Mexico Publishing House Photobook Contest. His work is part of the renowned Mulder Collection.