Kariny Padilla (b.1999, Santiago, Dominican Republic) is a visual artist based in Queens, NY. Kariny’s work blends hand-sewn unstretched canvases with painting, using stitching as both a technique and a conceptual tool to create layered surfaces that explore themes of memory, identity, and materiality. Kariny’s work is derived from a yearning to create sanctuary-like spaces for the subjects present in her work. Kariny earned her BFA in Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2021. Her work has been featured in prominent exhibitions, including the 15th A.I.R. Biennial at A.I.R. Gallery, NY, The New Contemporaries, Vol 3, Residency Art Gallery, CA, she was a participant in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program in 2022 and attended Chautauqua School of Art Six Week Residency Program in 2025.

My work blends hand-sewn canvases with painting, using stitching as both a technique and a conceptual tool to create layered surfaces that explore themes of memory, identity, and materiality. During the 60s and 70s feminist movement, artists created works using materials and techniques associated with “women’s work” such as textiles, sewing and embroidery. Similarly, through my work I aim to use sewing to connect to historical textile practices while allowing me to create contemporary compositions that draw from my experiences and the women in my life, weaving together documentation and invention.
In my work, color acts as both a form of expressive liberation and protective camouflage. These hues I choose allow my subjects—and myself—to simultaneously navigate between visibility and invisibility, shapeshifting, and finding freedom to expand and unravel. The figures in my paintings, often close friends, exist in sanctuary-like spaces that reject or confront the external gaze. These environments, free from societal constraints, allow for the embodiment of playfulness, tenderness, mischief, and fluidity—qualities too often denied to Black and brown women.