Aca Galleries will present Taking up space: new works by Kandy G Lopez on view September 10 through October 24, 2026. An exhibition catalog will be available.

Afro-Caribbean American multidisciplinary portrait artist Kandy G Lopez honors the power, dignity, and layered identities of communities historically rendered invisible. Born in New Jersey and raised in South Florida to Dominican parents, Lopez’s practice is shaped by diasporic experience and the negotiation of identity across cultures. Her bold use of color reflects the vibrancy and hybridity of Caribbean and urban American life, while her commitment to portraiture becomes a means of reclaiming visibility for those historically overlooked.

The individuals she portrays are people she has met and engaged in her daily life. They are not symbolic stand-ins, but real people whose presence carries cultural memory, resilience, vulnerability, and unmistakable swag.

Textiles are central to Lopez’s practice. Fiber evokes domestic labor, migration, ancestral knowledge, and intergenerational storytelling—histories deeply embedded within Caribbean and African diasporic traditions. Her layered threads mirror the layered identities of her subjects—complex, hybrid, and in motion. To be seen fully, without erasure, is an act of power.