Maria Sampaio is an award winning portrait artist with a passion for helping families preserve their memories. “Life is in constant motion, and it can change in one split second,” she says. “It stops for no one. It's all too easy to forget those little details that can be so important."

Her expertise in composition, lighting, posing, and color harmony help her create art that is timeless and becomes elegant heirlooms that will be passed down from one generation to the next. Maria believes in celebrating life - a family’s love, history, and legacy. “I want clients that treasure family above all else, because that is what I treasure most,” Maria says. Maria also treasures the imagination and innocence of children, which is why she also creates whimsical fairy tale images that celebrates play and fun.

Maria loves photography, but her true love is painted portraits. She painstaking creates each painted portrait, paying attention to every tiny detail, so that when it hangs in a family’s home forever, it is a sweet reminder of their love and a time they wish they could visit again. Children grow so fast.

Before she moved to Charleston, Maria owned and operated a successful studio in Pittsburgh, PA for more than a decade. She sold the brand in search of the dream of living in beautiful Charleston, SC and never seeing snow again.

She opened Castelo Portrait Art, and named it in honor of her late father, whose middle name was Castelo. “Although my father did not know the first thing about art, he (along with my mother) was my biggest supporter. I miss him terribly, so I named my new art studio after him. Seeing his name on the front of my studio each day brings me a heightened sense of pride.”
“I photograph the world as I want it to be, never as others see it. There is beauty everywhere.” - MARIA SAMPAIO, M. Photog., M. Artist, Cr.