Soft Connections is open today and tomorrow from 12-5pm, come see this installation featuring new works by Kentaro Okawara, Nia Musiba and Marsha Mack.
Photography by @mariogalluccistudio
Gallery hours
12:00–5:00PM
Fridays & Saturdays
FISK Gallery at W+K
224 NW 13th Ave,
Portland, OR 97209
Various sculptures by artist Marsha Mack, Soft Connection is open today until 5pm
To see a price list for the exhibit, please email [email protected] 📧
Photography by @m_h_raines
Gallery hours
12:00–5:00PM
Fridays & Saturdays
FISK Gallery at W+K
224 NW 13th Ave,
Portland, OR 97209
Untitled 6, 56x38”, oil on canvas, 2026 by Kentaro Okawara for Soft Connections, opening tonight! Thursday, May 7, from 5-8pm. See you soon Portland :)
Kentaro Okawara is a Tokyo-born, Seoul–based artist working across painting, sculpture, and publishing. Rooted in the belief that art is an expression of love and connection, his work builds a vivid universe of humans, creatures, and personified objects rendered with humor and emotional immediacy. Drawing from everyday relationships and lived experience, his compositions balance childlike directness with reflections on communication and intimacy. Okawara has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions such as Muse Taking a Shit at Diesel Art Gallery, Tokyo (2025), and projects with Hato Press in London, alongside group presentations at The Approach, London, and GR Gallery, New York.
Lee predicts the future, 2026, gouache on saa paper by Nia Musiba for Soft Connections, opening Thursday, May 7, from 5-8pm
Nia Musiba is a Portland-based multidisciplinary artist working across painting, murals, ceramics, and design. Centering Black and brown bodies as sites of tenderness and transformation, her work uses bold color, symbolic forms, and fluid figuration to explore identity, love, and cyclical growth. Influenced by graphic design and writing, she approaches image-making as both storytelling and world-building. Musiba has presented solo exhibitions including Unseasonably Warm and The Impossible Art of Coming Together at One Grand Gallery, with additional exhibitions at Sou’Wester Lodge, Stephanie Chefas Projects, and The Society Hotel. She was a 2025 Caldera Arts Artist in Residence.
Swan Song, 2026, glazed ceramic by Marsha Mack for Soft Connections, opening Thursday, May 7, from 5-8pm
Marsha Mack is a Portland-based artist working in ceramics, installation, and mixed media. Her practice explores identity, desire, and cultural memory through materially rich environments informed by her Vietnamese-American heritage, consumer culture, and rituals of everyday life. Incorporating confectionary aesthetics and tactile surfaces, her work blurs sculpture and lived experience, balancing playfulness with psychological depth. Mack has exhibited widely, including presentations with the PDX Art Program and the GLEAN Artist in Residence exhibition in Portland, and was part of the 2025 GLEAN residency cohort. She currently serves as Assistant Director of Galleries & Exhibitions at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Kentaro Okawara is our first artist-in-residence of the year, coming to Portland from Seoul via his home country of Japan. He has been hard at work creating 15 large scale oil paintings in the beautiful W+K Portland building that is housing FISK Gallery. Featured here are some behind-the-scenes of his studio over the last week.
We hope you can join us for Soft Connections, opening Thursday, May 7, from 5-8pm alongside new works by Nia Musiba and Marsha Mack.
FISK Gallery at W+K
224 NW 13th Ave,
Portland, OR 97209
Kentaro arrived to Portland from Seoul on Thursday, he’s been drawing and painting nonstop. He often draws from everyday experiences, his sketches become a sort of diary. Whether it’s playing video games, making a table or exercising. Kentaro finds a way to live in the moment and illustrate these tender moments.
Today is the last day to see EXHAUST, in celebration of the closing we will be hosting Open Drawing with Nishat from 1-3pm. See you there! Thank you to everyone who attended and supported our inaugural exhibit. Big love to Nishat and Bráulio!
Please note, the gallery will be closed May 1+2 for the installation of our next exhibit ‘Soft Connections’.
We’re thrilled to announce our second exhibit ‘Soft Connections’ which opens on May 7 featuring works by Kentaro Okawara, Nia Musiba, and Marsha Mack.
Soft Connections brings together Kentaro (Japan), Nia (Portland), and Marsha (Portland)—three artists whose practices share a commitment to tenderness, intimacy, and emotional immediacy. Working across painting, drawing, and ceramics, each artist approaches “softness” as both a visual language and a way of making—fluid, tactile, and open to transformation.
Please save the date for our opening night on May 7, 5-8pm! ❤️
FISK Gallery at W+K
224 NW 13th Ave,
Portland, OR 97209
