Bushwick’s reigning queen of irreverent wit and sharp artistic insight, Lisa Levy, is inviting fans inside her head, literally. On Thursday, May 22 at 6PM, Levy will host a book party for The Thoughts In My Head, a new art book filled with over 100 pieces of her signature text-based work. The longtime neighborhood fixture, Radio Free Brooklyn host, and former Bushwick Daily advice columnist will be signing books, showing art, and performing a live book talk that’s equal parts hilarious and disarming. The event takes place at Pine Box Rock Shop, just off the Morgan L train stop at 12 Grattan St, Brooklyn.
More Than a Book, It’s a Mirror
Levy’s work blends found language, personal insecurity, and raw self-awareness into punchy one-liners that read like therapy sessions gone public. From the painting that declares, “If I’ve never offended you, we’re not that close,” to matchbooks bearing confessions, Levy’s art walks a fine line between the deeply personal and the wildly relatable. At the event, she’ll share some of her favorite “thoughts,” alongside a curated selection of paintings available for studio prices.
The Queen Mother of Bushwick Art Girls
Levy has carved out a space in the New York art world as an artist who uses humor as a scalpel. Her career spans decades, including 30 years as an advertising art director, where she learned just how fast people consume and discard language. That understanding fuels her current work, where every word is chosen to disarm, challenge, or connect. Her art is rooted in the written language we see every day, graffiti, signs, matchbooks, even offhand remarks, and reframes them as cultural commentary.
“Depending on how it’s contextualized, the meaning can be changed radically, often in a humorous way,” Levy says. “When you use words without an image, the emotion evoked by the words comes from the context in style.”
Art That Thinks: and Makes You Think
The Thoughts In My Head is more than an art book. It’s a collection of raw, funny, often uncomfortable reflections that feel like they were pulled from your own internal monologue. Levy’s voice is unfiltered and unmistakably hers—part therapist, part provocateur, part best friend who tells you the thing you didn’t know you needed to hear.
For those familiar with her podcast Dr. Lisa Gives A Shit, where she plays a performance-art version of a therapist probing guests with sometimes brutal honesty, the book offers a similar experience, only printed and bound. “It helps me feel less self-conscious about being appropriate, which I am often not,” she says. “Though I have no desire to offend.”
Books, Bargains, and Bushwick Vibes
Copies of the book will be available for just $20—half the retail price, and original artwork from the book will be on sale as well, at what Levy calls “too-low-to-mention” studio prices. The event runs from 6 P.M. with a 30-minute book talk and art commentary at 7PM, promising laughs, reflection, and possibly some soul-baring moments from Levy herself.
Whether you’re a longtime fan, a neighbor, or just someone who’s ever felt weird about being weird, this event is your chance to step inside Lisa Levy’s brain—and maybe walk out with a piece of it.Lisa Levy’s book, The Thoughts In My Head, is available for purchase on her website. To keep up with her latest work, follow her art on Instagram at @lisalevyartwork. For a deeper dive into her performance persona, follow @drlisalevySP on Instagram and @DrLisaLevySP on X (formerly Twitter), where the self-proclaimed therapist delivers her signature mix of raw humor and radical honesty.
