'Núria Riera paints with the clarity and flow of water itself, using her watercolours to steady our attention and reveal the quiet significance held within everyday moments.'
Núria Riera paints to slow the world down. Her watercolours begin quietly: a simple object, a shift in light, the pull of the sea. She is drawn to the beauty of ordinary things - the things we often overlook - and through her work she invites us to pause long enough to notice them.
Although she loved visiting museums as a child, Núria didn't grow up constantly drawing. Her path into art came later, after university and a conventional job, when she realised she had stepped away from what felt true. At 27, she made a decisive change: she left her career, entered a full-time art academy, and discovered the life she had been searching for.
Water soon became central to her practice. Now based in Tarifa, between two seas and two winds, she has found a landscape that mirrors her inner rhythm. As an open-water swimmer, she feels deeply connected to the ocean, and this relationship guides her approach. Watercolour - fluid, direct, and quietly unpredictable - allows her to work with water's nature, letting it lead rather than control it.
Núria paints only what is essential. She removes what distracts so a subject can speak for itself. She rarely explains her work, believing that words narrow what a painting can offer. Everything she wants to say is already present in the brushstrokes.
Her paintings ask for a moment of stillness. They are an invitation to pause, breathe, and rediscover the quiet beauty of the everyday.