Huey Gastón Lightbody

Representation matters. Showing up matters. Thank you to @blackgirlsinartspaces NY chapter for their authentic presence and energy while visiting our booth at NADA NY. Thank you for supporting artists @lightbody.studio @mayabeverly_ Special thanks to @ujaxdup @kacimerriwetherhawkins @newartdealers

Installation views of our debut presentation at NADA NY with Huey Lightbody and Maya Beverly. Thank you again to @newartdealers @heathermhubbs and the entire team! Come see us now through Sunday at the Starrett-Lehigh building. 601 W 26th Street. Booth E25 @lightbody.studio @mayabeverly_ Images by: @silviaros.photo

Southside Contemporary is pleased to present select new works by @lightbody.studio as part of the 2026 NADA NY art fair by @newartdealers Huey Lightbody (b. 1998) is a multidisciplinary visual practitioner residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in Jamaica, Queens, and raised in Virginia Beach, Lightbody turned to creative investigation after stepping off a conventional life path, finding in his practice both refuge and revelation. His work merges street-inspired gestures, abstract portrait fragments, and modernist impulses. More than form or decoration, his surfaces serve as communicative fields for exploring the human complex, with a particular focus on the mechanisms and emotions of addiction. Through every layer and abrasion, Lightbody’s practice seeks not only to reflect personal narrative but to spark collective reckoning—and to transform vulnerability into a sharpened shared language of renewal. “My practice is rooted in a deliberate process of dismantling and reconstructing form to confront interior landscapes and inherited structures. I approach material as both site and subject, allowing acts of disruption and rebuilding to reveal deeper sources of meaning. My paintings begin with a decision to surrender: to let the work carry the weight of life’s complexity, the inevitability of death, and the daily practice of returning to the present. Moving through addiction, impatience, greed, and attachment, I use the studio as a site of healing where raw experience is refined into form. Built through ink and charcoal drag, abrasion, and graphic line informed by graffiti’s grit and materiality, my surfaces accumulate like architecture. I am drawn to Brutalism for its insistence on honesty in material, structure, and process. In a similar spirit, I leave evidence intact: the scrape, the spill, the overpaint, the fracture. Each mixed-media composition becomes a communicative field that holds turbulence and tenderness at once. Layer by layer, the paintings anthropomorphize growth and inner refinement, offering metaphorical cycles of unmaking and remaking.”

Huey Lightbody Booth E25 @newartdealers May 13-17 “Of Great and Grand” Mixed Media (Acrylic, Aerosols, Charcoal, Graphite, Oil Paint, Ink, Dry Marker, Adhesive) Paper Board 20 x 30in. (unframed) Approx. 23 x 33in. (framed)

We invite you to join us for an invite-only studio showcase at Huey Lightbody’s personal studio in Philly, PA. As Lightbody prepares for his debut presentation at NADA NY and an upcoming solo exhibition in NY, he is welcoming a select group of stewards, collectors, curators, writers, consultants and supporters to his studio. He is very excited to share new works and shifts in narrative processes. Just completing a very successful debut presentation at the NADA Miami art fair, Lightbody looks forward to writing new chapters and sharing these experiences with his growing network. He continues to evolve and develop consistently as an emerging artist and we are enthused to share this journey with you and the artist. If you are interested in joining us for the studio session, please send us an email to register. Sponsor: Blackstone Brothers Distillery -—— Private Studio Session Saturday, May 9th 12pm-6pm

Dispo dookie dump of friends and life.

House of Lightbody. Early ‘26 Fire, Lightning. Gratitude. Tokens of Survival PHL-CDMX-SF-NY

2 weeks from now, I will be opening my private studio for another intimate collector experience. This space functions as a nexus of time and opportunity to engage with myself as an artist and practice as purpose. Intentionally set the weekend before @newartdealers NY to provide a fully immersive point of connection outside of the fair. Meet me in Philly May 9th. 12pm-6pm Contact for further details. To protect my peace and my space, any expressed interest of attendance will be screened for congruence and alignment. Bless

2026 “Years of Compulse” Mixed Media (Acrylic, Charcoal, Graphite,Colored Pencil, Oil Paint, Adhesive) 300lb Pressed Paper Approx. 20” x 30” My work is shared to my Patreon before It is shared here..paid membership is much appreciated but to join is free.

2026 “The Assimilation of Quintessential Displeasures” 20” x 30” Paper Board (Aerosols, Charcoal, Graphite, Acrylic, Oil Paints, Adhesive) Blocked, gutted, guttural, Bloody toothpaste, Damn Stimuli speaks so easy, input. Bloody toothpaste. GUM Somedays I start imagining what that day will look like who will have “words” and from when. Did I learn here deep enough. I can only imagine, so I do constantly, so much so that I can feel it. Makes me cringe. A real tear jerking kind of thing you know. Feels necessary in understanding deep nurtured displeasures all at once. Deep endings until gone feels love.

Here are just a couple pieces I’ve completed this year. A lot has changed in the past 2 years and even more so in the past 6 months. My life has changed so much I’m still grappling with how to adapt to ease and peace. I have shifted from sharing my work so openly here. However, with immense intention. I am thankful I’ve been gifted space and capacity to redefine reclusion for myself. What’s communicated through my work makes the process sultry in sense. With that I must be vigilant of the respects I bring to that inner conversation. What’s poured is larger than I ever was or will be. I give thanks for your continued love and support.

No words to waste just thankful.