A mixed-media artist from the Azores has become the first from overseas to be featured in an online gallery devoted to Bermudian art.Lisa Howie, the owner of the Black Pony gallery, said Leonor Almeida Pereira’s abstract paintings explored “the oceanic horizon and landscape as spaces that are at once familiar and unknown”.She added: “Sculptural qualities entice us to feel the contours, to immerse into the depths, or plunge headlong into a sea with or without colour.”Ms Almeida Pereira, who paints as Loope, said: “In my artwork, I search to express a certain mood, my mood or the island’s [or both], using a visual language influenced by geography, geology, volcanology and so on.“For me, beauty is important; I consider it a human need, a matter of health, and nature stands out as some of its scenarios are printed in my brain as guidelines.“However, what drives me to do my work is something else that is present in me regardless of where I live, more like a mindset, a predisposition. I read somewhere that intuition was processed in a region of the brain called insula, a word that derives ‘island’.The artist, who runs Oficina, an art gallery and studio in Ponta Delgada, Saõ Miguel, said: “I found that curious. So, I guess the island informs my artwork in mysterious ways.”Loope’s solo exhibition, The Familiar Unknown, will be featured on Black Pony until May 4. Black Pony, which opened last July, represents ten Bermudian artists. Ms Howie, formerly executive director of the Bermuda National Gallery, said the gallery aimed to represent contemporary artists from the Atlantic World, from the Azores and Bermuda and to Trinidad.• The gallery can be viewed at https://www.artsy.net/lisa-howie-projects