On a cold winter afternoon, I visited ACA Gallery on Tenth Avenue to see “Textile Truths: Faces of Resilience,” an exhibition by Afro Caribbean multimedia artist, Kandy G Lopez. I’d learned about her works in fiber through her cover story in American Craft Magazine in 2024, and was excited to see them in person.
The impact of her embroidered portraits felt immediate and overwhelming in the best way. There was much to take in, from the direct gaze and stance of the subjects, to the textured marks of the embroidery. Each piece invited me to get closer to enjoy the details, then step back to take in the full glory of the figures.
The strands felt like brushstrokes, carefully placed yet freely drawn. Yarns of varying thicknesses and tones were shaded to create the nuanced plains of the faces and clothes. In the context of my world of home textiles, embroideries were usually feminine and floral. I loved seeing this familiar craft reimagined in such a dynamic and expressive way.
Layers built upon layers to create a sense of three-dimensionality in each figure. Some pieces were so strangely lifelike, it almost felt like the subjects might walk off the background mesh and ask me why I was staring at them. Using modern materials and a non-traditional approach, these embroideries accomplished what portraits have aimed to do for centuries. They captured some essence of the human spirit invisible to the naked eye.
Through my research, I learned that Lopez, who was born in New Jersey to Dominican parents, finds her subjects in a number of ways. Some are friends and family members. Others are strangers she meets at art fairs and through social media. What they all have in common is, in the artist’s words, swagger.
In interviews, Lopez clarifies that she doesn’t select or style her subjects’ outfits for their portraits. She chooses people based on their look and the confidence they exude, which she then tries to channel and capture. Many of her muses are fellow creatives with their own artistic practice. As I wandered through the gallery, I felt that sense of kinship. These subjects didn’t feel exoticized. They felt seen and celebrated.
In an interview about her last show at ACA Gallery called “We the People,” Lopez talks about how in her undergraduate program, she was encouraged to articulate why she was creating images of her community. To her, she was just making pictures of people. In a larger context, she understood that making uplifting images of black and brown people was, in and of itself, a political statement.
At this point in her growing career, Lopez, who won the prestigious Florida Prize in 2025 and is also an Associate Professor at Nova Southeastern University, is deeply aware of her power as an image maker. She speaks about wanting to elevate the people she’s representing, these “faces of resilience,” as the exhibition is titled. In an interview with The Arts and Culture Center, she explains why she takes all her source pictures from the floor. This perspective makes the subject feel monumental. She’s even learned to create ornate resin frames for the smaller pieces to bring in the baroque styling of historical portraiture.
Lopez’s path to fiber work wasn’t direct. As a young student growing up in Florida, she immersed in drawing and oil painting, and later explored ceramics, collage and printmaking. When she was pregnant with her first child and couldn’t paint due to the solvents, she was inspired to return to an earlier fiber experiment. In 2021, a month at the Hambidge artist residency in Georgia allowed her to focus on these new ideas. Cut off from the internet and domestic responsibilities, she was able to focus on exploring and perfecting the art of “how to make something look like a painting that wasn’t paint.”
It was refreshing to learn how a limitation of early motherhood led to an exciting new body of work. In the pandemic, I turned to writing as my creative outlet because it was something I could do anywhere - on the floor while my newborn slept and later, on the subway en route to the office. Hearing Lopez’s story gave me even more appreciation for her work, and inspiration to continue my own practice.
“Textile Truths: Faces of Resilience” is open until January 24th, 2026 at ACA Galleries in Chelsea. To learn more about the artist, visit https://www.kandyglopez.com.
