In L’affrontement, a serene river scene is disrupted by the spectral arrival of a colonial vessel bearing a cross, its presence echoed by small, almost anecdotal human figures along the banks. The lush vegetation and calm waters heighten the tension between natural abundance and the latent violence of conquest, which unfolds not as spectacle but as an unresolved encounter suspended in time.

Across José Gamarra’s oeuvre, the conquistador functions less as a historical figure than as a mutable archetype of domination. Rather than anchoring conquest in a fixed past, Gamarra disperses the conquistador across time, allowing it to reappear in ever-shifting guises: as an armored rider, a modern soldier, a corporate executive, an ethnographer, a tourist, or a pop-cultural icon.