Nieves Beguiristain was born and trained as a painter on the Spanish side of the Basque Country. She taught art at a secondary school before moving to London where she read Philosophy and Aesthetics. After some years of academic, work she now lives and paints in Cheltenham.

Her painting is rooted in reality but the message is purely pictorial. Subject matter may be of secondary importance, an element of anchorage for the balancing of shapes and colours. The importance given to the figurative element thus competes with that given to the handling of paint. The visible world adds a realistic element and permits the making of marks related to things other than themselves.