Friday, the USF Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM) unveiled its new exhibit, “Histórias/Histories: Contemporary Art from Brazil.”

Along with this exhibit, a concurrent art instillation by Brazilian artist Sandra Cinto, entitled “Chance and Necessity,” was also put up for public display.

At a symposium also held Friday, Cinto, USFCAM curator Noel Smith, Caio Reisewitz of “Histórias” and Director of the Institute for Research and Art Margaret Miller, talked about the upcoming exhibit and Cinto’s installation.

Cinto was born in Santo Andre, Brazil, and currently lives and works in São Paulo.

“She works in a wide range of media including ink drawings on paper, large scale drawings on canvas and installations in public projects,” Smith said. “Notable public projects and commissions include, ‘One Day, After the Rain,’ commissioned by the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., ‘Encounter of Waters,’ at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Park Pavilion, and ‘A Casa das Fontes: The House of Fountains,’ an installation conceived for the Casa do Sertanista in São Paulo.”

When Cinto graduated, she first started out as a painter. However, later she turned to drawing as her major medium.

“At my time, painting was the most easy thing, and everybody can buy paint and start to painting. But after I finished the grad school, I worked all day long and I only had time to do my works at night,” Cinto said.

Due to her having little to no time to paint, the artist found drawing as a way to continue her artistic work.

“If I didn’t start to drawing, I will be never here today. So the drawings (make) me to be an artist. And why drawings? I believe it’s because drawing is a language that we can work in many place with very few materials, we just need a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil, and that’s it. The most important things in the drawing is the wish to do something, the intention. It’s the most intimate language I think,” Cinto said.

“Now, the language of drawing is my main language, it’s something that I need as an expression. I need to drawing everyday, like talk, like dancing. It’s part of my life.”

Additionally, Cinto displays one major theme throughout her work: water.

“For me, the water is very important,” said Cinto. “Because all religions using water as in rituals — water can renew, water can bless, water can clean. So baptism, or all rituals of passage, the water is very important. And I also believe that water is something that is very pleasant for us, because the first place where we are, when we are inside the belly of our mothers, we are in water.”

Her beliefs on water caused Cinto to start representing it in her art. She talked about some of her previous exhibits in which the influence of water is prevalent.

Cinto talked briefly about her fascination with Japanese art, from which she said she draws inspiration. She also talked about how this influence caused her to re-approach her art style, changing from big installations to smaller works, and from works depicting water to art that incorporated the substance in its creation, such as watercolors. Cinto was also inspired to try her hand a printmaking while she was at the USF Graphicstudio, though she said she was bad at the method during school.

“Sandra came to Graphicstudio last year and has been working at Graphicstudio with us, and it was just too good to pass up the opportunity to have her do a project for us,” Smith said.

Both the exhibit and Cinto’s installation will be available for viewing in the USFCAM until Mar. 5.