OOE ARTIST FEATURE: Symphony of Colours: Portuguese-Canadian Perspectives: Behind the scenes with Joana Pimental at the Embassy of Portugal

There are currently 131 embassies, high commissions and consulates in Ottawa that are dedicated to promoting the history, heritage and culture of their nations to the people of Canada. And some, like the Embassy of Portugal, are fortunate to have cultural representatives like Joana Pimental who met recently with The Mainstreeter to explain the important work she and her staff conduct to bring the arts and culture of Portugal and Portuguese-Canadians to our country.

Officially, Pimental is the Senior Advisor, Cultural and Educational Affairs at the Embassy of Portugal on Island Park Drive. Unofficially, she is a whirling dervish of promotional activity, and few things excite her more than collaborating with cultural peers in other nations to showcase Portuguese language and arts.

For example, in November, she joined forces with cultural colleagues from 26 other European Union member states to help stage the 40^th Anniversary of the European Union Film Festival at the Arts Court in Ottawa. That same month, the Embassy of Portugal under Pimental’s stewardship, worked together with fellow Portuguese-language colleagues from the Embassy of Brazil to stage the Portuguese Language Short Film Festival at Club SAW.

So, it is no surprise that when The Mainstreeter met with Pimental, she was already engaged in active planning for a major cross-cultural Portuguese and Portuguese-Canadian art exhibit on the Embassy’s drawing board for this coming June in Ottawa to help mark Portuguese Heritage Month in Canada.

Symphony of Colours: Portuguese-Canadian Perspectives will present a vibrant selection of paintings by Portuguese and Canadian artists, exploring themes of identity, heritage, and belonging. Diverse in style, the works engage in a visual dialogue that reflects the complexities of multiculturalism and the diasporic experience, offering fresh perspectives on the connections between Canada and Portugal.

Symphony of Colours features sixteen works in total, by Luso-Canadian artists Victor Carreira, Cândida Martins, and Maria João Sousa (Majão), alongside works by Canadian artists Nathalie Dupont and Yan, whose practices are, in different ways, inspired by Portugal.

Symphony of Colours proposes the exhibition space as a site of encounter: between abstraction and representation, memory and place, Portugal and Canada, and between artists and audiences navigating their own relationships with heritage and belonging.

Their styles, visual languages, and genres are notably diverse, ranging from gestural abstraction to expressive landscape painting. Despite this formal and aesthetic variety, the works enter into subtle and compelling dialogue through shared thematic concerns and emotional registers.

Some works employ layered brushwork, vibrant chromatic contrasts, and intuitive mark-making, evoking memory, movement, and interior landscapes rather than fixed geographies. Others engage more directly with recognizable places and architectural structures, referencing Portuguese environments and stories. Together, these approaches reflect different ways of negotiating distance, belonging, and cultural heritage.

Rather than offering a singular narrative of the Portuguese diaspora, Symphony of Colours embraces plurality and fragmentation, mirroring the diasporic condition itself. The dialogue between works unfolds through shared gestures, such as repetition, layering, rhythm, and the tension between permanence and transition.

Born in Faro, in the Algarve region of Portugal, Maria João Sousa (Majão) moved to Montreal at a very young age. Influenced by painters such as Pissarro, Millet, and Monet, she explored impressionism and abstract painting before developing a distinctive personal style in which nature plays a central role.

Water and sky are recurring elements in her work, expressed through expansive blue spaces that evoke dreams, harmony, and a search for happiness, often accompanied by graceful female silhouettes gazing toward imagined horizons. Her richly coloured, luminous paintings also reveal evocative details inspired by landscapes and memories, blending light and shadow to reflect a fertile imagination shaped by two worlds that coexist in poetic balance.

Majão is working in collaboration with Joana and the Portuguese Embassy staff to curate the Symphony of Colours exhibition.

Cândida Martins: Born in Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel in the Azores. Martins began painting in oils in 2001 and, after initial training at the Casa dos Açores of Quebec, she developed her artistic practice independently. Her early work focused on still life, landscapes, and impressionist-inspired pieces influenced by Renoir and Monet, drawing inspiration from nature, the changing seasons, people around her, and photography.

In 2013, her style evolved toward abstraction, combining oil and acrylic paints with vibrant color compositions, and she also began teaching Painting at the Casa dos Açores, where she has inspired students through her dedication and passion. Her work has been exhibited in Canada and Portugal, including at the Museu do Arcano in Ribeira Grande and on the island of Santa Maria. Her exhibitions État d’âme (2014) and Between Dream and Reality (2019) were displayed at Casa dos Açores of Quebec. She has also participated in the Artes & Letras exhibition in Montreal.

Ian Olliff, who paints under the name Yan, is a Canadian artist and engineer whose painting practice emerges from a lifelong passion for visual storytelling. Though his artistic work began as a hobby, it has grown into a compelling exploration of cultural identity, memory, and human connection.

Married to a Portuguese woman, Yan maintains a close and affective relationship with Portugal and its people, a bond that deeply informs his art. His paintings often depict Portuguese landscapes, people, and everyday life, reflecting both personal experience and a broader dialogue between Canadian and Portuguese cultures.

For details regarding the Symphony of Colours: Portuguese-Canadian Perspectives exhibition, visit the Embassy of Portugal website at https://otava.embaixadaportugal.mne.gov.pt/en/about-portugal/portuguese-culture-and-language.

Author Tanis Browning-Shelp (http://www.browning-shelp.com) pens her Maryn O’Brien Young Adult Fiction series, published by Dog-Eared Books, from her home in Old Ottawa East. Contact tanis@browning-shelp.com if you have information about artists or art events that you believe would enrich our community members’ lives.