Experience the Art of Body Mapping in New York City
Project: Transcend NYC, the unique body-mapping experience highlighting the personal journeys of six artists from the transgender and gender-nonconforming community, is now on view at the Manhattan LGBT Center.
Featured image: L. Nichols (they/them). Photo Credit: Kim Hernandez
Following twelve weeks of intense artistic introspection and expression, Project Transcend has opened at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center in Manhattan on Tuesday, March 31st, 2026, from 6 pm – 9 pm, and is part of The Center’s Day of Trans Visibility programming. It will run at The Center through May 31st. The project is supported by The Women’s Community Justice Association and by the donations of individuals who care about the arts and representation.
What is Body Mapping?
At its most simple iteration, body mapping is an artistic exercise where one’s entire body is traced out onto life-size rolls of paper. The artists are given space to express their own story in their own way.
Project: Transcend NYC elevates the body-mapping experience into a raw expression of the joys and trauma each artist faced on their own creative journeys. The prompts given to them are designed to encourage introspection and explore the truths of their personal experience, and in doing so, highlight our collective humanity. While the process can be challenging, the results were six wholly individualized and beautiful pieces of art that do what art is supposed to do: expose truths in all their colors.
Who are the Artists?
The artists chosen to participate in Project: Transcend NYC came from a field of talented applicants from across NYC. They represent a wide array of media and styles, including painting, photography, digital art, illustration, and graphic art. While participation in the project was specifically focused on transgender, gender nonconforming, and non-binary visual artists, the emphasis for inclusion was on the artistry, aesthetic, and emotion behind each artist’s work.
Ameirah Neal (She/Her): a Black Trans independent artist formerly based in Washington, DC, now based in the Brooklyn Metropolitan area. Ameirah has been creating since she was a child. She specializes in painting, murals, fashion illustration, graphic design illustration, and many other creative pursuits.
A.R. Herbert (They/Them): a Belizean-American artist based in NYC. Using various media, including micron pens, Copic markers, and Prismacolor pencils, they construct illustrations that investigate the body as a shifting site of identity, illness, and mortality. Their work consists of skeletal bodies, anatomical structures, and melancholic figures that serve as a symbolic vessel.
“My interest in Project Transcends was motivated by the ability to be surrounded by other fellow queer artists and collectively creating art together. The bond that has been cultivated through the 12 weeks has been healing and rehabilitative,” says Herbert.
Arkanoii Dante Guzman (They/Them): a queer, trans, non-binary, and disabled Latine digital artist and painter telling their story through the blocked-out blur.
Griffin Milewski (They/He): an NYC-based illustrator and cartoonist. What shows up often in their art is horror, fantasy, and mythology. Their focus, in any medium, is on telling a story. “Project Transcend has been an amazing experience, which has allowed me to connect with my community and myself,” says Milewski. “In my art, I often explore what it means to exist in a body that is ‘atypical,’ or that doesn’t align with society’s view of how a body should be, so this approach of body mapping allowed me to expand on that theme in a way that felt very poignant.”
L. Nichols (They/Them): An artist, MIT-educated engineer, data analyst, and father who has been writing and drawing comics for over 15 years. Their work is primarily autobiographical, focused on gender, nature, and queerness.
Luca Beau (They/He): a pyrography artist, poet, and zinester. His works explore ideas of physicality, identity, and religious deconstruction.
Project: Transcend NYC is produced by Cheryl Paley (she/her) and Tym Moss (he/him). Cheryl is a theater director, playwright, and arts intervention specialist who has curated several other body mapping initiatives, among them a Body Mapping residency in the first transgender unit of a New York City prison. Tym is a singer, actor, TV/radio host, and activist. His tireless efforts on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ community include work as a lobbyist, advocate, and coordinator for Pride events throughout the 5 boroughs.
“Body Mapping is something I was introduced to early on in my work at St. Luke’s, directing devised theatre for The NiteStar program, and it became an essential tool,” explains Paley. “I was able to see how profound a role it could play with people in reclaiming their own identity. And then I saw this again, working with non-binary individuals in the shelter system and inside the first transgender unit of a NYC prison through my work with The Women’s Prison Association. The artists of Transcend are professionals. They came in focused, open, and seeking community. Watching that fearless creative spirit find its footing in the form of these incredible panels was a privilege and a joy.”
Project: Transcend NYC has been made possible by a generous gift from The Elephant Rock Foundation, as well as small-dollar donations from individuals across the country. Those fundraising efforts are still underway.
To donate to the project, please visit gofundme.com/f/trans-artists-stories-in-lifesized-art.
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, commonly called The Center, is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population of New York City and nearby communities. Drop by at 208 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011.
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