Quinha Faria, Cambium
August 7 - September 11, 2026
One Grand Gallery is pleased to debut new work by Portland-based multidisciplinary artist Quinha Faria. Working between wood, masking paper, and organic and synthetic materials to carve, paint, and weave these pieces, the material distinctions between surface and support begin to collapse. Cambium, the exhibition’s title, refers to the thin living layer of undifferentiated cells in vascular plants where new growth is generated. “Undifferentiated” is the operative word here—it means the cells have not yet specialized, they retain the capacity for multiple possibilities.
Faria is interested in cambium as a hidden generative structure. The cambium is a place of potential, of response and formation. The recurring use of adjacent panels or paired planes in these new paintings reflect the artists interest in relationship rather than division. The two surfaces are distinct entities, they do not resolve into a single unified object. They remain separate while influencing one another. Boundaries and edges are porous sites of communication, contact/touch, exchange, negotiation, differentiation. Carved works such as “Osmosis” or “Event” share these qualities as alternating layers of rust and shellac or acrylic, rayon, and adhesive compound (respectively) build upon one another atop the birch substrate.
As in trees, some cells in the cambium layer maintain themselves, while others become xylem (wood) or phloem (inner bark). They exist between states of stability and emergence, suggesting that what appears stable or complete is always being shaped by invisible processes underneath. This also connects to the artists ongoing interest in the support as an active participant in forming what we perceive. Large-scale sculptures constructed of masking paper further inform this thinking by recasting a utilitarian material into organic forms. The focused “Support Studies 1-5” of the same medium explore different stages of the intricate, additive and reductive processes. A barrier typically meant to simply protect a surface here becomes all-inclusive: shape, support, and surface. Compositional balance is reached quietly through these networks of exchange and feedback between Faria, the works, and their environment. A piece is finished when it has a sort of unnameable quality, when Faria senses it has a life, a complexity, and some kind of equilibrium to it that can speak for itself.
This show will span the main gallery at 1000 E Burnside and will also extend into the auxiliary exhibition space above.
Quinha Mukai Faria (b. 1988, Campinas, Brazil) is an artist working across painting, sculpture, and installation. Her years at the hospital bedside inform an ongoing inquiry into the relationships between bodily, material, and social systems. Drawing on her training in human physiology, emergency medical care, and custom tailoring, Faria works with provisional materials drawn from the infrastructures of everyday life. Faria received an MFA from Bard College in 2025 and holds a BS in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a BS in Human Physiology from the University of Oregon. Her work has been exhibited at Kiang Malingue (New York), Art Basel Hong Kong, Asian Arts Initiative, Vox Populi, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and Carnation Contemporary (Portland).
@quinha_faria
quinhafaria.com