Vania Ruiz Villarroel

Valparaíso, Chile.

An architect by profession, she always had the need to create things with her hands. The jewelry surprised her by allowing her to gather what she liked to do since she was a child: tell stories, paint and build objects. With her work she always seeks to discover and understand different aspects of our cultural identity. Since 2010, he divides her time between work for her brand Casa Kiro Joyas and a more thoughtful and personal work of artistic jewelry.

From her work as a craftswoman, artist and manager, she hopes to contribute to build her own and current language of Chilean crafts. Throughout her 10 years in jewelry, she has exhibited in Chile, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Argentina and the United States.

She has been part of Joya Brava since 2011, doing collaborative work and opening spaces for this new jewelry in Chile and the world. “We organize ourselves to educate ourselves, promote and spread our work. This alliance has matured my work technically and artistically”, she assures. 

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Statement:

"For me, artistic jewelry is the sum of a handicraft work plus an artistic, intellectual and experimental work, through which I seek to relate to culture, discovering in popular manifestations, a starting point for creation.

The decoration that celebrates the cult of death, devotion, homes, are all instances in which the artisan work of popular knowledge is present, although many times it is relegated to a lower level of “crafts”. Laborious works of a feminine world that are manifestations of love and belonging.

Each series is a tribute to the feminine worlds that move me, and are always accompanied by experimentation with some new material and historical or anthropological research and reflection on some identity aspect. I generally use synthetic or industrial materials to give them a new handmade use, because they are the raw materials of our time and that I have at hand in my environment. I use inexpensive materials and give them many hours of my time".

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