APU-RIMAK: INDIGENIST MEMORY IN TWO STROKES
Alejandro González Trujillo, known artistically as Apu-Rimak (a Quechua phrase that can be translated as “the one who speaks with the gods”), was one of the most singular and quiet voices of the Peruvian indigenist movement. Born in Cusco at the beginning of the 20th century, his work unfolded in dialogue with the country’s major cultural and political transformations, at a time when art was beginning to recognize, make visible, and revalue Andean heritage through a critical and affirming lens.
Indigenism was more than an artistic school — it was an intellectual and political project. It brought together artists, writers, historians, and educators who sought to break with the colonialist vision of official culture in order to reclaim Indigenous roots as the foundation of national identity. Apu-Rimak was an active participant in this movement, but unlike other indigenist artists who worked from Lima or studied in European academies, his gaze emerged from within the territory itself: from Cusco, from the Andes, from everyday life.
Far from idealization or folklore, his work is marked by a careful, restrained, and poetic observation of Andean life. His figures — most often women, peasants, or animals — are integrated into the landscape not as anecdotal elements but as carriers of a cultural memory that resists the passage of time. His line is clean, sober, unembellished. He does not seek drama, but rather introspection.
Apu-Rimak understood drawing as a form of conversation with his surroundings. Instead of narrating grand historical episodes, he focused on minimal scenes: an empty street, a group of seated women, the shadow of an Inca wall. In this aesthetic choice lies a political stance: to make visible what has been historically silenced, to give value to what has been relegated, and to return to the Andean landscape its human and spiritual dimension.
This pencil drawing portrays a quiet, deeply layered moment: a group of women seated before the cyclopean walls of Sacsayhuamán. In the foreground, some women converse while others rest in silence. Their bodies trace a soft curve along the earth, in harmony with the slope of the terrace where they sit. To the side, one woman stands, possibly watching the scene or the horizon beyond, framed by the massive Inca architecture that looms gently in the background. Further off, two llamas rest on the stonework, extending the presence of the natural world within the composition.
The chosen vantage point is crucial: Apu-Rimak does not depict Sacsayhuamán’s monumentality from afar, but from within — from the interior of an intimate, everyday moment. The walls are not mere backdrop or decoration, but a living body coexisting with the human figures. The stones do not overwhelm the women: they embrace them, remember them.
Nothing in this drawing is forced. The composition flows naturally, as if the artist had been a witness rather than a director of what unfolded before him. The women sit on the ground with ease, without ceremony. Their faces — drawn with an economy of line yet great expressiveness — convey a way of inhabiting the world that is both present and ancestral.
This suspended moment holds no drama, no heroic gesture. What Apu-Rimak captures is a state of being: the slow time of the highlands, the long breath of stone, the continuity of the everyday. The scene, in its simplicity, becomes a symbol — a quiet affirmation of belonging, of legacy, and of living presence within a sacred space that was never truly uninhabited.
Here, Sacsayhuamán is neither ruin nor postcard: it is a lived territory, still vibrant, still fertile.
This second drawing, signed and dated by the artist, offers a view from the top of the steep and emblematic Calle Amargura in the historic center of Cusco. The vanishing point descends from the stone steps toward the intersection with Calle Saphi, allowing for a deep, layered reading of the urban landscape. On both left and right, adobe and stone colonial façades line the narrow passage uninterrupted, while staggered rooftops guide the eye toward a eucalyptus grove and the mountains that close the composition.
A woman walks alone down the middle of the street, dressed in traditional clothing and moving with calm poise. She is the key figure: despite her small relative size, she anchors the entire scene. She represents the everyday inhabitant who moves through the city with familiarity — and simultaneously serves as a visual guide for the viewer.
The graphic treatment of textures — stone, tile, adobe, foliage, sky — reveals the artist’s technical precision. Yet beyond the detail, what truly stands out is the atmosphere: there is light, there is air, there is suspended time. Apu-Rimak renders the city not merely as architectural setting but as a space of transit and belonging. There is no haste, no theatricality. The woman walking does not parade, she does not pose — she simply is. And with her, Cusco breathes.
Indigenism was more than an artistic school — it was an intellectual and political project. It brought together artists, writers, historians, and educators who sought to break with the colonialist vision of official culture in order to reclaim Indigenous roots as the foundation of national identity. Apu-Rimak was an active participant in this movement, but unlike other indigenist artists who worked from Lima or studied in European academies, his gaze emerged from within the territory itself: from Cusco, from the Andes, from everyday life.
Far from idealization or folklore, his work is marked by a careful, restrained, and poetic observation of Andean life. His figures — most often women, peasants, or animals — are integrated into the landscape not as anecdotal elements but as carriers of a cultural memory that resists the passage of time. His line is clean, sober, unembellished. He does not seek drama, but rather introspection.
Apu-Rimak understood drawing as a form of conversation with his surroundings. Instead of narrating grand historical episodes, he focused on minimal scenes: an empty street, a group of seated women, the shadow of an Inca wall. In this aesthetic choice lies a political stance: to make visible what has been historically silenced, to give value to what has been relegated, and to return to the Andean landscape its human and spiritual dimension.
1. Women at Sacsayhuamán
This pencil drawing portrays a quiet, deeply layered moment: a group of women seated before the cyclopean walls of Sacsayhuamán. In the foreground, some women converse while others rest in silence. Their bodies trace a soft curve along the earth, in harmony with the slope of the terrace where they sit. To the side, one woman stands, possibly watching the scene or the horizon beyond, framed by the massive Inca architecture that looms gently in the background. Further off, two llamas rest on the stonework, extending the presence of the natural world within the composition.
The chosen vantage point is crucial: Apu-Rimak does not depict Sacsayhuamán’s monumentality from afar, but from within — from the interior of an intimate, everyday moment. The walls are not mere backdrop or decoration, but a living body coexisting with the human figures. The stones do not overwhelm the women: they embrace them, remember them.
Nothing in this drawing is forced. The composition flows naturally, as if the artist had been a witness rather than a director of what unfolded before him. The women sit on the ground with ease, without ceremony. Their faces — drawn with an economy of line yet great expressiveness — convey a way of inhabiting the world that is both present and ancestral.
This suspended moment holds no drama, no heroic gesture. What Apu-Rimak captures is a state of being: the slow time of the highlands, the long breath of stone, the continuity of the everyday. The scene, in its simplicity, becomes a symbol — a quiet affirmation of belonging, of legacy, and of living presence within a sacred space that was never truly uninhabited.
Here, Sacsayhuamán is neither ruin nor postcard: it is a lived territory, still vibrant, still fertile.
2. Calle Amargura, Cusco (1935)
This second drawing, signed and dated by the artist, offers a view from the top of the steep and emblematic Calle Amargura in the historic center of Cusco. The vanishing point descends from the stone steps toward the intersection with Calle Saphi, allowing for a deep, layered reading of the urban landscape. On both left and right, adobe and stone colonial façades line the narrow passage uninterrupted, while staggered rooftops guide the eye toward a eucalyptus grove and the mountains that close the composition.
A woman walks alone down the middle of the street, dressed in traditional clothing and moving with calm poise. She is the key figure: despite her small relative size, she anchors the entire scene. She represents the everyday inhabitant who moves through the city with familiarity — and simultaneously serves as a visual guide for the viewer.
The graphic treatment of textures — stone, tile, adobe, foliage, sky — reveals the artist’s technical precision. Yet beyond the detail, what truly stands out is the atmosphere: there is light, there is air, there is suspended time. Apu-Rimak renders the city not merely as architectural setting but as a space of transit and belonging. There is no haste, no theatricality. The woman walking does not parade, she does not pose — she simply is. And with her, Cusco breathes.