‘Diálogos (In)temporais’ brings together works by two leading names in contemporary art, Sofia Areal, an artist from mainland Portugal who lived on the island of São Miguel for four years, and Urbano, an artist from São Miguel.

This exhibition invites us to suspend time, to look beyond our own temporal limitations and to experience art as a portal that transports us to a dimension where the past, present and future coexist in harmony. In this exhibition, timelessness is revealed as a fertile field of possibilities, a journey that leads us to question our own existence in time and the ephemeral beauty of things. Here, art is not just an expression of the moment; it is an open door to infinity, where time dissolves and only the essence remains.

Although Sofia and Urbano have different artistic trajectories, they both share a strong connection with abstraction, colour (or the lack of it), nature and emotion. While Areal focuses on a more gestural and energetic language, Urbano incorporates a greater connection with the natural environment and a more contemplative sensibility. In both cases, the works abstract and synthesise the world around them, creating visual dialogues that summon the visitor to a unique sensory and emotional experience.

Sofia Areal, known for her abstract language, works with colour and form in a vibrant way, exploring the dialogue between matter and spirituality. Her compositions are full of dynamism, where spots, lines, circles and colours merge into a visual field that stimulates the imagination. The circle in his work is not a static figure; it is movement, it is pulsation. It emerges as a fundamental symbol of her plastic grammar, suggesting continuity, transmutation and an interconnection between all things. For Sofia, the circle represents life in its fullness - it's where everything fits. It is the synthesis of existence, a form that harbours the beginning and the end, the interior and the exterior, and which connects all the dimensions of human experience.

Looking at Urbano's works, we realise that the forms already existed on an ethereal plane, moulded in the light of emotions. A palette strongly inhabited by blue reveals in an almost minimalist way the bench where his grandmother sat reading the Bible, contributing to a dreamlike feeling, in which the function of the object is more linked to personal meaning than to realism, ‘September #3’. We continue our ‘journey’ through her memories, which gently emerge, like a promise, and gradually lead us to an explosion of colour, full of fragments of childhood. This climax, of an almost Fauvist vibration, is mirrored in ‘September #6’, a work of strong, vibrant colours. This fresh memory that has become real, and which while intimate is also universal, gradually fades back to its ancestral place in ‘September #12’.

It is with this dialogue, which transcends time, that we begin the project Pontes Culturais da Romanti Cultura.

About the artist

Sofia Areal was born in Lisbon in 1960.
She is one of the most important Portuguese artists today. She began her artistic training at Herefordshire College of Art & Design in the United Kingdom, 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 finds speed, the instant, and in them she satisfies the freedom of impulse, surprise and accident, and the exploration of a unison relationship with supports and materials. In Portugal, he attended the Ar.Co painting and engraving workshops between 1981 and 1983. He has exhibited collectively since 1982 and individually since 1990.
Na sua composição, busca um ideal solar, uma estética do belo, do agradável, do prazer, da harmonia, que procura nas relações de equilíbrios, entre fundo e composição, entre risco e mancha, entre texturas e lisuras, entre opacidades e transparências, entre as cores sólidas de uma palete 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.

It is represented in the collections: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Modern Art Centre, Lisbon, Portugal. Casa da Cerca - Contemporary Art Centre, Almada, Portugal; Elvas Museum of Contemporary Art, António Cachola Collection, Elvas, Portugal; Funchal Museum of Contemporary Art, Madeira, Portugal; A.N.A. Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; FEVAL, Cáceres, Spain; Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal. Fundação Oriente, Macau, China and Portugal; Fundação D. Luís I Foundation, Cascais, Portugal; Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal; PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Millennium BCP Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Banco Espírito Santo, Lisbon, Portugal; Banif Mais, Lisbon, Portugal; Afundación, Obra Social ABANCA Galicia, Spain; Câmara Municipal de Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal; Museu Carlos Reis, Torres Novas, Portugal; Vodafone Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; Alberto Caetano Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; Figueiredo Ribeiro Collection, Abrantes, Portugal; Luis Ferreira Collection, Lisbon, Portugal.

About the artist

João Urbano Melo Resendes was born on the island of São Miguel, Azores, in 1959. He lives and works in Porto and the Azores. He studied printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, 1995/7. In 1998 he took part in the Kaleidoscope Programme: The Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm and Tavira Print Workshop.
Since 1997 he has been represented by Galeria 111 in Lisbon. In 2000, with his solo exhibition ‘Os Primeiros Frutos’, he opened the Fonseca Macedo Gallery in Ponta Delgada, with which he collaborates.
In 2015 he was awarded the ‘Autonomous Insignia of Recognition’ by the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
Until 2023 he had held 50 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions. He has published several books on his work.

It is represented in the collections: Carlos Machado Museum, Ponta Delgada; Angra do Heroísmo Museum; Arquipélago - Contemporary Arts Centre, Ribeira Grande; Caloura Cultural Centre, Lagoa, São Miguel; Presidency of the Government of the Azores, Sant'Ana Palace, Ponta Delgada; Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs; Rectory of the University of the Azores, Ponta Delgada; Museum of the Presidency of the Republic, Lisbon; City Museum, Lisbon; Berardo Foundation, Lisbon; Escola Secundária Antero de Quental, Ponta Delgada; Escola Secundária Domingos Rebelo, Ponta Delgada; Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional de Ponta Delgada; Biblioteca Municipal Tomaz Borba Vieira, Lagoa, Azores; University College, London; Câmara Municipal de Ponta Delgada; Câmara do Comércio e Indústria de Ponta Delgada; Novo Banco, Ponta Delgada; Santander Totta, Ponta Delgada; Millennium bcp, Lisbon and Ponta Delgada; E. D.A. - Electricidade dos Açores, SA; Companhia de Seguros Fidelidade, Lisbon; Portuguese Embassies: Brasilia; Stockholm; Zagreb; Madrid and Unesco, Paris; Manuel de Brito Collection, Lisbon.