Sofía Ruiz (1982) creates a deeply introspective visual universe, where dreamlike scenes and emotional layers emerge in paintings that balance the figurative and the surreal. In her latest works, she explores memory and identity through gentle imagery, where body fragments and symbolic gestures become carriers of silent meaning.
Her practice is marked by a particular sensitivity to the emotional life of the image. The human figures she depicts often float in open, indeterminate spaces—drawn with a delicacy that almost makes them disappear. Through transparency, layering, and the use of negative space, she conveys the ephemerality of the self: memories, longing, and the body as a container for emotions.
A poetic discomfort permeates her works. The images suggest both personal and collective memories, inherited experience, and the fragility that comes with being human. But in this very fragility lies strength—a quiet reclaiming of the voice through the soft, the gentle, and the imperfect.
Ruiz’s work also explores a sense of otherness, duality, and the loss of identity she experienced as a child when her mother suffered from amnesia. Often feeling like a stranger in her own home, a caretaker rather than a typical child, this emotional disconnection is reflected in the isolated, distant children that appear in her paintings. Her images speak of the contradictions within us: how we can feel both seen and invisible, present and absent. The textures and forms in her work hold tension between clarity and distortion, exploring how memories can be fixed, altered, or lost over time.
Her visual language eludes clear categories. Her paintings lie somewhere between portrait, narrative, and subconscious, offering the viewer a space for contemplation and reflection. In the exhibition at SPACE Gallery, her presence adds a special emotional depth. Her fables do not seek a conclusion; rather, they invite quiet encounters with the inner self.
Exhibitions
2025
SPACE - (September)
Fábula, Matices Gallery, Costa Rican Country Club, Escazú, Costa Rica (SOLO)
BOCA, Studio Ale Rambar, San Jose Costa Rica
2024
Rastros, Galeria Talentum, San Jose, Costa Rica (SOLO)
CAF, Art Fair, San Jose Costa Rica
Weird, Cultural Center El Aleph, San José, Costa Rica
Internacional Finalist Painting Exhibition, Almenara Art Prize 2024, Real Circulo de la Amistad, Cordoba, Spain.
2da Edition Croma Bienal 2024, Costa Rica Country Club, San Jose, Costa Rica.
Finalist Exhibition Women in Art Prize Roundhouse, London UK.
ModPortrait 2023 , MEAM, (European Museum of Modern Art), Barcelona, Spain
The Tropics, Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2023
Fábula, Matices Gallery, Costa Rican Country Club, Escazú, Costa Rica (SOLO)
Efigies, Museo Regional de San Ramón, CR
Casino 2023, Casino Gallery, SJ, CR
Etérea en Femenino, Galería Etérea, SJ, CR.
2022
Imaginary / Make-Believe, ConArte SJ Gallery, Costa Rica. (SOLO)
2019
Extraña Infancia, Costa Rican Art Museum MAC, San Jose, CR
2017
Solo Print Exhibition, University of Costa Rica Gallery, San José, Costa Rica (SOLO)
SOFA art Fair, Maria Elena Kravetz Gallery, Chicago IL USA
2016
Figuración y Abstracción, Allegro Gallery, Panama
2015
JustMad 6, Contemporary Art Selection, Madrid, Spain2014 Spectrum Art fair, Spectrum Art Fair, Miami, USA
2014
Fictions, Allegro Gallery, Panama City, Panama. (SOLO)
Casino 2014, Galeria Espacio 4 San Jose, Costa Rica
Valoarte 2014, San Jose, Costa Rica
Wynwood Selection, Galeria la Localidad, ARTBO, Bogota , Colombia
2013
On and Off, Giamaart Gallery, Benevento, Italy.
I am the Others, curated by María José Monge, Central Bank Museums, San José, Costa Rica. (SOLO)
11th World Cultural Art Symposium, The Mosan Art Museum, South Korea
Collective Fictions, Nouvelles Vagues, Curated by Isabelle Lenormand, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2012
Printmaking in Costa Rica, Ayuntamiento de Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain
Intersubjetividades, Museum and Gallery Route, International Arts Festival,
Museums of the Central Bank of Costa Rica. San José, Costa Rica
Casino 2012, Avenida Escazú, San José, Costa Rica
2011
2011 MIA Miami International Art Fair, Miami, USA
Casino 2011, Gallery Klaus Stainmetz, CR
Education
2020
Master's in Educational Management with an Emphasis in Leadership, UNA, CR.
2013
Artist in Residence at the 11th World Symposium on Art and Culture, Mosam Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea.
2010
Artist in Residence at the Intaglio Print Workshop led by Graciela Buratti, BA, Argentina
2008
Artist in Residence at the Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI), Lafayette College,Easton, PA, USA.
2008
Bachelor of Fine Arts with a specialization in Engraving, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Costa Rica, CR.
2007
Bachelor of Fine Arts with a specialization in Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Costa Rica, CR.
2007
International Multiple Engraving Workshop, led by Alicia Candiani, Havana, Cuba.
Sold out
