Sofia Areal began her artistic training at the Herefordshire College of Art & Design in the UK, attending the Textile Design course between 1978 and 1979 and the Foundation Course between 1979 and 1980. Her initial interest in the tapestry technique was directed towards painting and drawing, due to the time associated with the production process, where she found speed, the instant, and in them she found the freedom of impulse, surprise and accident, and the exploration of a unison relationship with supports and materials. In Portugal, he attended the ateliers de pintura e gravura do Ar.Co, entre 1981 e 1983. Expõe colectivamente desde 1982 e individualmente desde 1990.

Her works are abstract compositions, overlapping and juxtaposing shapes and lines, between emptiness and fullness. Contrasts live in them, between separation and cosiness, between home and travelling, between withering and blossoming, between the weak and the brave, between sea and land. Day and night, life and death, heaven and the abyss. In dimensions that vary between large and small format, rectangular, square or round, he applies, on canvas and on paper, indiscriminately disorganising the codes of drawing and painting, graffiti, dry pastels, India ink, watercolour, acrylic paint, and elements resulting from cutting and collage. In his composition, he seeks a solar ideal, an aesthetic of beauty, of pleasure, of harmony, which he looks for in relationships of balance, between background and composition, between scratch and stain, between textures and smoothness, between opacities and transparencies, between the solid colours of a palette em que predominam os vermelhos, os amarelos, os azuis, os negros e os brancos sem renunciar a presenças de desdobramentos em cores secundárias, e encontra nos contrastes formais que emergem do instinto do gesto declaradamente musculado, que inscrevem os pessoais.

His works are part of the collections (selection): Modern Art Centre (CAM) of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Serralves Foundation, Porto; Caixa Nova de Galicia, Vigo; FEVAL, Cáceres; Funchal Museum of Contemporary Art (MUDAS), Funchal, Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon; Casa da Cerca - Contemporary Art Centre, Almada; Millennium BCP Foundation, Lisbon; Novo Banco Collection, Lisbon; PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon; Oriente Foundation, Lisbon; Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon; Cachola Collection, Elvas; Fernando Ribeiro Collection, Abrantes; Luís Ferreira Collection, Lisbon; Alberto Caetano Collection, Lisbon.