Being born into a family of jewelers and having a father who was an art collector living in Geneva have left their mark on Nuria Ruiz's career.

On returning to Barcelona, the town of her birth, at the age of 19, she graduated in gemology at Barcelona University and studied Fine Arts at the Escuela Massana. In 1972 she opened her first boutique, Cubic, specializing in minerals and ethnic jewelry. At the same time she started designing jewels. Her early pieces already reflected what was to become a constant feature of her designs: working with natural and symbolic forms with the idea of reducing them to their essence.

Her first references were the engineering of the 1920s and 1930s, and she recognized in the master jewelers of Maison Fouquet and in Boucheron, Faberge, Tiffany and Cartier a similar interest in enriching modern jewelry by embracing new motifs.

The main influences in her work come from other cultural sources such as the centuries-old refinement of the Orient or the directness of African art. The combination of these aesthetics produces an eclectic and very precise universe, in which the forcefulness of the plain symbol contrasts with a taste for ornamentation and the two are resolved in fragile equilibrium.

1992 saw the opening of the NVRIA RVIZ gallery, designed be the architect Oscar Tusquets as the ideal setting in which to present her collections. She is currently exhibiting her work here at Exposures International Gallery of Fine Art and at Novajoia and Barnajoya in Barcelona.

Nuria Ruiz's latest pieces have acquired a universal air, with a simple, minimalist style appropriate to the theme of each series. Her obsession raises designer jewelry to the level of a work of art.

"I love to create Jewelry. When my mind is empty and my pen moves by itself on the paper, it is as if an invisible thread is guiding my lines. This is a sublime moment. I lose all sense of time and I feel in total synchronicity with the universe. The emotion felt in the creative process and the surprise when I discover that my hands can produce harmony have caused me to dedicate twenty five years of my life to the design of jewelry. It has been a long and intense process. The quest for new shapes and techniques has allowed me to express what I feel in my own way. Each collection is a challenge. Each one will be different from the other, and what is most fascinating of all, is the fact that I don't know what kind of jewel I will be making tomorrow." - Nuria Ruiz