{"id":746861,"date":"2025-11-26T22:47:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=746861"},"modified":"2025-11-26T22:47:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:47:58","slug":"meet-afro-caribbean-portraitist-kandy-g-lopez-the-barkley-l-hendricks-of-fiber-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=746861","title":{"rendered":"Meet Afro-Caribbean Portraitist Kandy G. Lopez, the Barkley L. Hendricks of Fiber Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Arts<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meet Afro-Caribbean Portraitist Kandy G. Lopez, the Barkley L. Hendricks of Fiber Art<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
By <\/span> Stephanie Sporn<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 26, 2025<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Kandy G, Lopez, Arsimmer<\/em>, 2025. Yarn and spray paint on hook mesh mounted on fabric background.<\/span>Photo: Roman Dean, courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

I first encountered Kandy G. Lopez\u2019s larger-than-life fiber paintings at ACA Galleries\u2019 booth at the 2024 Armory Show. As New York City\u2019s Javits Center is not exactly known for its charming and distinctive ambience, I typically race through it, in search of art to cleanse my proverbial palate.<\/p>\n

Exploding with style and personality, pattern and color (think neon orange bucket hats, leopard pants, and bug-eye specs), Lopez\u2019s portraits of her diverse Miami community stopped me in my tracks, much in the way that the portraits of Barkley L. Hendricks\u2014a major inspiration for the Afro-Caribbean artist\u2014do.<\/p>\n

As instantly arresting as Lopez\u2019s portraits are from afar, the real magic happens when you\u2019re up close, basking in the meticulously and fully hand-embroidered figures. The 38-year-old artist, who also works in prints, paint, and glass, has spent the last four years perfecting her fiber-based portraits, each of which typically takes a week or a week and a half to complete, if she\u2019s in the studio six to eight hours a day. (In addition to being a practicing artist, Lopez is an associate professor in the Department of Communication, Media and Arts at Nova Southeastern University. She also has two young children.) 2025 has marked several milestones for the artist: she won the Orlando Museum of Art\u2019s People\u2019s Choice Award; was granted a residency with the Galleries of Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, where she will have a show in 2026; and she had her first international solo exhibition at the Florence Fondation in Paris.<\/p>\n

This November in New York City, ACA Galleries opened \u201cTextile Truths: Faces of Resilience\u201d (through January 17, 2026), Lopez\u2019s sprawling second solo exhibition with the gallery, where her technical prowess continues to impress. With each portrait, whether solo or group, bust or full-body, the photorealism from afar is stronger than the last, the close-up detail more astounding. It\u2019s clear Lopez is growing more confident in her practice, as she experiments with adding three-dimensional touches like cowrie shells, playing with outlines and negative space to contrast heavily worked sections, and allowing the figures\u2019 hair or shoes to venture beyond their rectangular grid\u2014an effect that the artist likens to paint dripping. It\u2019s as if Lopez is breaking the fourth-wall, asserting the figures\u2019 agency in not only the daring outfits they wear but also their commanding poses. They proudly take up space.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Kandy G. Lopez, Poetic Justice<\/em>, 2025. Yarn and acrylic on hook mesh.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Roman Dean, courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

For Lopez, the works are about representation, both of the marginalized individuals who comprise her community and of herself. \u201cThough I\u2019m depicting other people in my work, I often think of it as a self-portrait. While I\u2019m making them, I\u2019m thinking about my own identity and what it means to be an Afro-Caribbean making images of people from all over,\u201d the artist tells Vogue<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Like many first-generation Americans, Lopez has \u201calways had an identity issue.\u201d Born to Dominican parents and raised in a Spanish-speaking household (in a predominantly white neighborhood in New Jersey), Lopez grappled with her race and ethnicity until moving to South Florida. \u201cThe minute I got to an inner-city school, I felt like I was seen,\u201d she says. After initially applying to a middle-school magnet program to study dance with her best friend, Lopez decided to switch to art, where she eventually found her calling: \u201cBy the time I got to eighth grade, and I started drawing bodies, I was like, \u2018Oh, this is something that I really want to do over and over and over again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During college and graduate school, Lopez found her chief inspirations. Renaissance artists significantly influenced her for their technique and the way they denoted power. \u201cI think a lot about art history and the representation of kings and queens and the way the most important people have gold around them,\u201d Lopez says, noting that she often sprays her hook mesh gold so that the sitters feel \u201cspiritual or majestic.\u201d In addition to Faith Ringgold, whom Lopez describes as formative for being a \u201cBlack woman doing her damn thing,\u201d and Hendricks, whose sitters\u2019 \u201ccoolness\u201d is always something Lopez seeks to emulate in her portraits, Lopez holds great admiration for African-American photographer Dawoud Bey, who has documented underrepresented communities since the 1970s. \u201cHe captures the essence of adolescence\u2014and the vulnerability and power of that\u2014with just a stare, which I also try to do within my work,\u201d Lopez says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

An installation view of \u201cTextile Truths: Faces of Resilience\u201d at ACA Galleries.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Roman Dean, courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Bey\u2019s street portraits additionally inspired Lopez to push beyond her comfort zone and ask strangers she spotted with \u201cserious swagger\u201d to sit for her. Otherwise, she tends to work with friends and family\u2014in her Hispaniola<\/em> series, for example, which features Haitians and Dominicans in traditional dress, such as the cultivo de la vida<\/em>, a flouncy white dress with red and blue stripes, inspired by the Dominican flag. When it comes to capturing contemporary garb, Lopez simply asks sitters to come in their \u201cswaggiest\u201d outfit, which she then photographs, shooting low to the ground so that the figures seem \u201clarger than life, extremely long, and powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Kandy G. Lopez, City Girls<\/em>, 2025. Yarn, acrylic, and spray paint on hook mesh canvas.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In the case of City Girls<\/em>, a 14-foot-wide group portrait, Lopez knew four of the sitters and asked them to bring friends, because she wanted a \u201cseven-women badass piece.\u201d Soon, the artist had herself befriended the entire crew. \u201cThis is a way of connecting with community and getting people into spaces where they wouldn\u2019t normally go,\u201d she says. \u201cIt might be the Hispanic part of me, where we engage, we laugh, we cry, we talk, we eat, we drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Lopez with the subjects of City Girls.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Courtesy of Kandy G. Lopez<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Relatedly, when people view her portraits, \u201cI want it to feel like family,\u201d Lopez says\u2014and it was a family reunion, of sorts, when City Girls<\/em> debuted at Expo Chicago this past April, and all seven women surprised her at ACA Galleries\u2019 booth. \u201cThere were lots of waterworks,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

For \u201cTextile Truths,\u201d Lopez debuted a companion piece, called City Boys<\/em>. Alongside both large-scale compositions is a series of individual bust portraits of the figures, celebrating their distinctive spirit and characteristics. The latter works also represent Lopez\u2019s first foray into handmade frames, in this instance, a transparent epoxy\/resin structure molded to evoke gilded Rococo ones. \u201cI wanted the frames to feel like water, as a reference to the Atlantic slave trade and how water connects all of us,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

An installation view of \u201cTextile Truths: Faces of Resilience\u201d at ACA Galleries.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Photo: Roman Dean, courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Experimentation remains crucial to Lopez, whose 2026 projects include a group exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art and a solo show at the Houston Museum of African American Culture. She\u2019s currently playing with incorporating fiber into glass and ceramic works. \u201cI like the metaphor of having something that\u2019s super hard but also very fragile. It speaks to the people that are being represented in the works,\u201d she says. At one point, she refers to their clothing and self-presentation as \u201carmor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

The duality of the materiality is further echoed in Lopez\u2019s embroidery technique, where the \u201cniceness\u201d of the front of her portraits contrasts the \u201cviolence\u201d of the knot-covered back. She observes, \u201cThe figures may have this tough exterior, but there\u2019s a softness on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/kandy-g-lopez-textile-truths-faces-of-resilience-aca-galleries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arts Meet Afro-Caribbean Portraitist Kandy G. Lopez, the Barkley L. Hendricks of Fiber Art By Stephanie Sporn November 26, 2025 Kandy G, Lopez, Arsimmer, 2025. Yarn and spray paint on hook mesh mounted on fabric background.Photo: Roman Dean, courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries I first encountered Kandy G. Lopez\u2019s larger-than-life fiber paintings at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":746862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-746861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=746861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/746862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=746861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=746861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=746861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}