Taking threads in a new direction
- Kandy is a multidisciplinary portrait artist working with fibre
- She creates large scale portraits that evoke the feel of oil paintings
- Her pieces traverse cultural landscapes and focus on marginalised groups
Kandy G López is an artist, professor and activist interested in exploring and researching issues of identity. Born in New Jersey and raised in Florida, she is the first generation of an immigrant Dominican family, and claims her identity between two cultures with colour and verve. Kandy’s creations are large-scale portraits, embroidered with yarn in rug mesh. To create them, she invites people she knows to pose for photographs. Kandy then embroiders the images in 3D textile creations to offer depth and meaning. “The sitter’s personality becomes the protagonist and colours blend and come to life as if they were brushstrokes,” she says. Kandy teaches at Nova Southeastern University in Florida and is represented by ACA Galleries in New York.
INTERVIEW
It happened by accident. A piece of thread fell on my collaged print and questions started forming. Then, in 2015, I was in a store and saw a bunch of threads on sale and a little canvas next to them. That was the founding moment of my research and experimentation.
Tradition is represented by the materials I use, yarn, thread, hook and mesh. Innovation is expressed through the technique, the people being represented and the feel of traditional oil paintings. I see the works as paintings but with fibre as a medium.
I am an art professor very involved with mentoring. My studio is relatively nomadic and I give workshops depending on exhibitions and residencies. I had a student who trained under me for a semester and she now works with fibre, making me very proud.
My practice focuses on marginalised groups who fade in and out of politics and social issues. It is not just the aesthetics that are important, the materiality determines the message. I play with these mediums as they speak to the person being portrayed.
