Kandy G. Lopez, M.F.A., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and Arts in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences (HCAS). As a visual artist, Professor Lopez explores constructed identities, celebrating the strength, power, confidence and swag of individuals who live in urban and often economically disadvantaged environments. With a variety of mediums, her images develop a personal and socially compelling visual vocabulary that investigates race, the human defense mechanism, visibility and armor through fashion, and gentrification. Professor Lopez wants her artwork to help educate, communicate, and foster uncomfortable topics that we seem to look past or avoid in our multi-cultural society. Representing individuals within poor communities in the U.S., these portraits help her, as a female Afro-Dominican American, come to terms with the way she too has to adopt and perform identities of survival.

Professor Lopez’s work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums. Recent exhibitions include: Delray’s Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, the Girls’ Club, Broward College Rosemary Duffy Gallery, Yeiser Art Center, Lincoln Center Fort Collins, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Gallery 51-Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Santa Fe’s Gallery 901, Armory Art Center, and Palm Beach International Airport. Professor Lopez has served on the studio art and design faculty at Daytona State College, Florida Atlantic University.