The Ponta Delgada City Council’s councilor responsible for education and culture, Sérgio Rezendes, emphasized that “each exhibition held at the Municipal Cultural Center showcases different approaches, perspectives, and techniques, thus contributing to the growth, development, and even maturation of future artists—individually or with the support of schools.”
The local government official was speaking at the Municipal Cultural Center of Ponta Delgada during the opening of the exhibition “A Travessia da Palavra” (The Crossing of Words), the first exhibition by young mainland artist Luca Sampayo, which Sérgio Rezendes believes “serves as inspiration, encouraging the courage of those who are also now taking their first steps in the world of art.”
Aware of the young artist’s growing attachment to the island and the municipality, the mayor challenged her to present a new exhibition in the future, “incorporating into her technical and pictorial language, in the thinking behind the production of the work, an approach, an external reading, an interpretation of what she considers to be Azorean identity in the 21st century.”
“The Municipal Cultural Center has several missions, one of which is to bring together skills, knowledge, talents, added value, and ideas that can and should be absorbed and explored by the community. Reading and books are to writing what exhibitions and art installations are to the creation of art,” he argues.
Sérgio Rezendes added that “this municipal space has hosted various projects and has served as a bridge between artists and the student community, but not only that. It is a space that transforms the city of Ponta Delgada into an artistic laboratory, a place for the transmission of knowledge, new arts, and forms of creation.”
The exhibition “A Travessia da Palavra” will be on display at the Municipal Cultural Center until June 18 and reveals, according to artist Luca Sampaio, “what cannot be seen. That which inhabits the physical and the metaphysical, the visible and the invisible.”
“Each painting here is also the translation of a reflection and an attempt to give shape to what is introspective, through an unorthodox mixed technique that includes oil, acrylic, pastel, and linocut, among other materials,” she said.
Luca Sampayo was born in 2002 in Lisbon and grew up surrounded by artists, painting, music, drawing, and architecture.
Academically, she specialized in Communication Design at the António Arroio Art School and furthered her studies in the same field at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon.
The exhibition “A Travessia da Palavra” consists of nine works, which can be viewed free of charge at the Municipal Cultural Center of Ponta Delgada, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

In Diário dos Açores

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.