Fernanda Rivero is a visual artist born in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1983, whose practice sits at the intersection of art, spirituality, the body and community. Three of her large mixed-media paintings on raw canvas are currently available at Art of NOMA: Life Force, Your Soul Knows and Full Moon, all made in 2024.
Who Is Fernanda Rivero, the Artist From Monterrey?
Fernanda Rivero was born in Monterrey, in northern Mexico, in 1983. The biography on her Fernanda Rivero artist page describes her as a visual artist whose practice unfolds where four things meet: art, spirituality, the body and community. It is a short list, but it tells you a great deal about what her paintings are trying to hold.
The gallery also records where her work has been seen. She has exhibited in Mexico and at international fairs, including Saatchi Art in Los Angeles in 2019 and Red Dot in Miami in 2021. For an emerging artist, that pattern is a familiar one: a practice built at home, then tested in front of international audiences at fairs where collectors see hundreds of works in a single afternoon and only a few stay with them.
What makes her a distinctive voice among the painters at Art of NOMA is not a biography full of milestones. It is the consistency of her idea. Every work the gallery carries by her is large, abstract, made on raw canvas, and titled after an inner state or a natural cycle rather than an object. The rest of this spotlight looks at why.
Identity as a Force in Motion
The most useful sentence in her biography is this one: for her, identity is a force in motion, one that shows itself in the relationship with the landscape, the community and natural cycles. Most portrait traditions treat identity as something fixed, a face or a figure that can be captured. Rivero's starting point is the opposite. Identity is not a thing to be pictured but a current that keeps moving.
That idea explains why her paintings are abstract. If identity is movement, then a likeness would freeze it at the wrong moment. The gallery's own description of her collection puts it well: she paints from intuition, and her works move with energy and cycle, mapping inner knowledge and emotional states onto the canvas. There is a physical, embodied quality to her abstraction, as if the painting were recording a current rather than a picture.
The other terms in the biography, landscape, community and natural cycles, are all things that change over time. Seasons turn, the moon waxes and wanes, a community grows and shifts. Her titles return to exactly this vocabulary. Full Moon is a cycle. Life Force is energy. Your Soul Knows is inner knowledge. The paintings are consistent with the ideas the biography names, which is the best sign that a practice is coherent.
What Does It Mean to Paint From Intuition?
Painting from intuition does not mean painting without skill or intention. It means letting the decisions on the canvas come from feeling and physical response rather than from a plan or a reference image. The painter reacts to the mark that was just made, and the next mark answers it. Over time, the surface becomes a record of that conversation.
In Rivero's case, the gallery's descriptions keep returning to the same idea: the surface is left visibly unresolved, and the marks stay raw. That is a choice. A painter who wanted a finished, polished image could sand, glaze and correct until every trace of process disappeared. Leaving the gesture visible tells the viewer that the process is the subject. You are meant to see how the painting was made, because how it was made is what it is about.
For collectors who are newer to abstraction, this is a helpful way in. You do not need to decode a hidden figure. The question to ask in front of one of her works is simpler: what does the energy of the surface feel like, and does it stay with you? Our essay on the emotional language of abstract painting explores that way of looking in more depth.
Life Force: Vitality Carried Through Material
Life Force is the largest of the three available works, measuring 180 by 150 centimeters (70.87 by 59.06 inches). According to its listing, the subject is vitality itself, carried through motion and material rather than depicted. Nothing in the painting illustrates life in a literal way. The energy is in the handling.
It is made in acrylic, pigments and charcoal on raw canvas. The gallery breaks the materials down clearly: the acrylic gives structure and color, the pigments add depth, and the charcoal lays down raw linear gesture, all absorbed directly by the untreated cloth. Charcoal on a painting of this scale reads almost like drawing at the size of a body, which fits a practice that names the body as one of its concerns.
At this size, Life Force is a wall-defining work. It suits a living room, a double-height entrance or a dining room where it can be seen from across the space and then up close. It is stretched on a wooden frame and arrives ready to hang, with a certificate of authenticity. If you are unsure whether a painting this large will work in your home, our guide on how to choose the right size art for your wall walks through the measurements.
Your Soul Knows and Full Moon, Side by Side
Your Soul Knows is the most materially dense of the three. It combines oil paint and oil stick, charcoal, spray paint and molding paste on raw canvas. The gallery notes that the oil gives luminosity, the stick and charcoal supply direct marks, the spray paint disperses across the surface, and the molding paste builds relief you can read as texture. The title points to a certainty beyond reason, and the painting treats its surface as a field to be felt rather than read.
Full Moon is quieter in its materials: acrylic for structure and depth, pastels for soft atmospheric transitions, and charcoal for the raw marks that ground it. According to its listing, the title reaches for cycle and emotional gravity, a moment of heightened awareness rather than a literal moon.
Both works measure 140 by 120 centimeters (55.11 by 47.24 inches), and both date from 2024. That makes them a natural pair to compare. Your Soul Knows is built up, textured and relief-like; Full Moon is softer and more atmospheric. Seen together, they show the range an intuitive practice can hold within a single year and a single format. Like Life Force, each is a unique original, stretched on a wooden frame and sold with a certificate of authenticity.
Why Raw Canvas Matters to Her Surfaces
All three of Rivero's available paintings are made on raw canvas, and it is worth understanding what that means. Most canvas is primed before painting, coated with a layer that seals the fibers and gives the painter an even, predictable ground. Raw canvas skips that step. The cloth takes in paint, pigment and charcoal directly, and the weave and natural color of the fabric remain part of the image.
The effect is different in each work. In Life Force, the gallery describes all the materials being absorbed straight into the untreated cloth. In Full Moon, the same absorption lets the pastels create soft transitions. In Your Soul Knows, the molding paste sits on top of the raw surface and builds real relief. The canvas is not a neutral support in any of them; it is an active material.
For a collector, this is a reason to look closely and, where possible, ask for detail photographs before choosing. Texture and absorption are hard to judge on a phone screen and obvious in person. Light matters too: a raking light will bring out relief and charcoal, while flat light will soften them. Our guide to framing, lighting and hanging original art covers how to plan for that.
What Should Collectors Weigh Before Choosing?
Start with scale. Life Force, at 180 by 150 centimeters, needs a generous wall and some distance to be seen whole. Your Soul Knows and Full Moon, at 140 by 120 centimeters, are still large works but fit a wider range of rooms. All three are vertical formats, taller than they are wide.
Then think about temperament. Life Force is about energy and movement. Your Soul Knows is dense and tactile. Full Moon is softer and more contemplative. The titles are a good guide here, and reading them alongside the works is one of the simplest ways to find the painting that fits your space and your life.
Prices are published on each work's page. To see Fernanda Rivero alongside other painters, browse the gallery's original paintings or discover the other artists at Art of NOMA.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Fernanda Rivero?
Fernanda Rivero is a visual artist born in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1983. Her practice unfolds at the intersection of art, spirituality, the body and community, and she paints large intuitive abstractions in mixed media on raw canvas.
Where has Fernanda Rivero exhibited?
She has exhibited her work in Mexico and at international fairs such as Saatchi Art in Los Angeles in 2019 and Red Dot in Miami in 2021.
What materials does Fernanda Rivero use?
Her works at Art of NOMA are made on raw canvas in mixed media, combining acrylic, oil, oil stick, pigments, pastels, charcoal, spray paint and molding paste, depending on the painting.
Which Fernanda Rivero works are available at Art of NOMA?
As of September 29, 2026, three original works are available: Life Force (180 × 150 cm), Your Soul Knows (140 × 120 cm) and Full Moon (140 × 120 cm), all made in 2024.