The institutional opening was attended by the Vice-Rector for Culture and Society of the UAL, María del Mar Ruiz Domínguez, accompanied by the Head of the Culture Section, Elisa Álvarez Siles; the Director of the Heritage Hall, Alfredo Ureña Uceda; the exhibition curator, Carlos del Pino Martínez; and the author himself, Gonzalo José Tejero Pérez.
Vice-Rector Ruiz Domínguez highlighted the Vice-Rectorate's commitment to "filling the university's spaces with exhibitions and proposals designed by the Heritage Hall, the Photography Hall, and intended for artistic creation," combining established artists with emerging ones like Tejero.
The Director of the Heritage Hall, Alfredo Ureña, explained that the exhibition initiates the Hall's exhibition program, defining Gonzalo Tejero as "a very young, promising artist," whose goal is "to use these university spaces to value and showcase this type of artist."
Ureña announced that this initiative is part of a broader plan that includes exhibitions of university heritage, active artists from Almería, established artists, and monographic exhibitions.
Gonzalo J. Tejero explained that the project, born in 2023 at the University of Granada, explores an expanded pictorial conception through painting, connecting with photography and graphic work to understand how landscape is constructed through images and the experience of the territory, especially in Almería, "a land that allows us to approach it almost with tenderness, in a much more sensitive way."
Curator Carlos del Pino expressed his excitement about bringing the project to the University of Almería, as it "was conceived here in Almería, stemming from the Almerian landscape." He highlighted that the Exhibition Hall of the Multipurpose Building "dialogues very well with the environment and the landscape."
The exhibition is notable for its experimental character, bridging new technologies and traditional pictorial creation. The works, largely created in the Image Laboratory of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Granada, integrate painting, graphic art (risography, mechanical processes), object interventions, photography, and installations, forming a cohesive narrative.
Gonzalo J. Tejero (Jaén, 2003), a Fine Arts graduate from the University of Granada, has received consecutive research and collaboration grants and has had international exhibitions in cities such as Paris, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, and Mexico City, in addition to being part of prestigious institutional collections like the Contemporary Art Collection of the University of Granada and the Atalaya Collection of the Public Universities of Andalusia.
