Artist Kandy Lopez isn’t looking to get famous, but that doesn’t mean fame won’t find
her. With a growing list of exhibitions and artist residencies, Lopez, an Afro-Caribbean portrait artist, was named one of three recipients of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Grant.
Grant awards this year are amounts of either $7,500 or $15,000.
The South Florida Cultural Consortium, established in 1988, is an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties. It has awarded over $4 million in grants to more than 300 artists. Artists Roscoé Thické and Angelica Clyman also received grant funding this year. As part of the award, Lopez, Thické, and Clyman will take part in an exhibition at Florida Atlantic University in 2025.
on hook mesh. (Photo by Kandy Lopez)
Lopez, an associate professor at Nova Southeastern University, describes herself as a
portrait painter who features people not usually found in galleries and museums.
People, she says, that look like her.
“I just want to make work and have people be proud of the work I make,” says Lopez. “I
want to show us in all ways possible.”
For Lopez, representation is paramount.
“I feel like the more you see yourself, the more you feel like you belong, especially when
the news is catered to showing the negative side,” she says. “I think it’s important to
show the normal joy of being different and the same at the same time.”
(Photo by Jade Lily)
Lopez, who grew up in North Miami but now lives in Ft. Lauderdale, begins her work with a photograph. She says that when she discovers people that she would like to know more about, she approaches them. Then she asks if they would like to be a subject for one of her works and then gets to know them. She takes photographs wherever the person feels most comfortable.
“They can come to me. I can go to them, or we can meet at a neutral spot,” she says. “They wear whatever outfit they feel most confident in and the most swagged out in.”
The materials she uses to create the portraits constantly evolve. Whether it’s painting, collaging, printmaking, working with stained glass or some combination, Lopez is always expanding her craft.
“Right now, I’m working with fibers so yarn and thread,” she says. “So, I use a hook rug, mesh, which is like the backing of a rug.”
Initially works were displayed on the floor.
left behind. (Photo by Kandy Lopez)
“This started after the killing of Trayvon Martin,” says Lopez. “The gallery goer would . . . walk on the individual . . . literally a rug on the floor.”
She found that the works became “too powerful (to be on a floor), especially when I started adding color.”
She says her work needs to be displayed in a way where it confronts the viewer, but also retains the message of walking on the subject.
So, each piece she creates now ends up being two. The first piece is the rug with the person on it and then, after the paper is taken away, she is left with a blank silhouette or halo of the person she created.
“That sheet of paper goes on the floor that people can step on,” she says. “It’s literally stepping on the fading away of the person that was there before, so it becomes a political and social message.”
Each piece she creates has the person’s first name or nickname on it.
“It’s kind of a way of remembering the past of the person, but also looking at the present part of the person,” says Lopez.
She says she’s had the experience that at first glance people will look at the works and think they are too beautiful to walk on.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, my God, why am I stepping on this?’” she says. “Why are there footprints on this?”
Lopez, who says her biggest challenge is time, can complete a portrait in two weeks if she’s working six-to-eight-hour days, she reveals.
“It’s hard balancing time as a multi-role person,” she says. “Being a mom when I need to be, being a professor when I need to be, being an administrator, being an artist, and being your own manager. It’s becoming harder and harder.”
However, Lopez says that the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists grant will help her focus more intently on the role of artist, pushing her to try new things.
(Photo by Kandy Lopez)
“It also alleviates stress because there’s financial backing there, so I don’t have to worry
as much,” she says.
Lopez, who finds inspiration visiting galleries, scrolling through Instagram and reading says that it’s other women who inspire her most.
“Mothers inspire me to do better, to be better.”
In fact, Lopez hopes that her own legacy will be her daughter, Mecca, 6, who recently
asked her for the sewing needle.
“I bought her a bag of Barbie clothes, but she just wants to make them,” says Lopez.
