Andrew Lyght

Lyght holds Guyanese, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship. Some of his work includes references to forms and objects from his childhood in Guyana, such as kites, sails, oil drums, and archaic rock writings found in the interior of Guyana.[2]

Lyght's work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions around the world since 1970,[3] with his most recent solo exhibition, "Second Nature," in 2020 at Anna Zorina Gallery in New York.[1] He had a retrospective in 2016 at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York, New Paltz, N.Y., for which an exhibition catalogue, “Full Circle,” was published by the SUNY Press.[4] The exhibition was curated by South African independent curator Tumelo Mosaka.

Lyght represented Guyana at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1971 and at the Guyana-Barbados Pavilion of Expo 67, Montreal (1967).[5]

Reviewing Lyght's retrospective at the Dorsky Museum for The New York Times, critic Joyce Beckenstein stated that Lyght's work “soars on the arc of a simple line. Mr. Lyght blurs all distinctions between drawing, painting, sculpture, digital photography and installation art. Each iteration of his distinct style charts the personal odyssey of a naturalized African-American artist from Guyana ... to Montreal, to Brooklyn, to Europe and, finally, to Kingston, N.Y., the birthplace of America’s first indigenous art movement, the Hudson River School.”[6]

Lyght's other museum installations include "Andrew Lyght: 3-D Paintings" at the Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn, N.Y. (1985), for which a catalogue was published by the museum,[7] and "Painting Structure" at Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass., in 1983.[8] He was included in the 2010 "Global Africa Project" at the Museum of Arts & Design, New York, an exhibition that was co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims and explored the impact of African visual culture on contemporary art, craft, and design around the world.[9] Lyght was an artist in residence at MoMA P.S. 1, Long Island City, Queens, N.Y., from 1978-80.[10]

Lyght received major grants from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation in 2010 and the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation in 2004.

His work is held in collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris;[11] the Jewish Museum, New York; the World Bank Art Program, Washington, D.C.;[1] the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass.