Born in Avilés (Asturias). He studied Fine Arts in Salamanca completing his training with the Contemporary Art Workshops of El Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (Spain). His career focused on painting until 2008, when he exhibited photographs of intervened landscapes for the first time on the occasion of his exhibition at the Reina Sofía National Museum and Art Center.
The work of Javier Riera is based on geometric light projections, striked directly onto the greenery and the landscape. He uses photography as a means of registration, without computer manipulation of any kind. His work is based on an experience of real intervention on “the space and time of the landscape”, which brings him closer to the proposals of Land Art.
The relationship between geometry and nature thus acquires a meditative character, appealing to the coexistence of the public with the power of suggestion of the modification of the landscape to which they attend, which aspires to broaden their perception by laying bridges towards hidden qualities and dimensions in the spaces where it takes place. Riera understands geometry as a natural language prior to matter, able to establish with it a kind of subtle and revealing resonance.
Among its institutional exhibitions, stand out Noche Áurea in Museo Nacional y Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2008), Secuencias in Museo Barjola (2010); Sincronicidad in DA2 (Salamanca, 2014), Luz Vulnerada in Centro Niemeyer (2015), Sector Primario in (MUSAC ,collective 2015), Luz natural. Un vacío siempre distinto in CAB (Burgos,2018) or Bonaval in CGAC (Santiago de Compostela, 2018)
Regarding his work in public spaces, he has carried out specific interventions for Photoespaña, MUSAC (León) or CAB (Burgos). Stand out interventions such as Alameda llum (2012) in which eleven of its installations remained for two months in Los Jardines del Turia, or Gráficos Paramétricos (2017) in El Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, as part of Luna de Octubre, which received over 6000 visitors . He has carried out interventions in places such as Annecy (France, 2018/2019) or the Karlovo Námestí Park in Prague (2016). In 2018 he intervened in the gardens of Bonaval, annexed to the CGAC Museum. In 2019 he took part in UMBRA (Vitoria-Gasteiz) with a work especially made for the Gardens of Florida.
His work is present in several art collections, such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía la Fundación Caja Madrid, Fundación Princesa de Asturias, Colección Banco de España, DA 2 Domus Artium or the New Pilar Citoler Art Collection.
Javier Riera keeps teaching at Master Photoespaña and at Francisco de Vitoria University in Madrid.