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White 18, 1994
Oil stick on canvas on wood panel

Purchase with funds from Alfred Austell Thornton in memory
of Leila Austell Thornton and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and
Sarah Miller Venable and William Hoyt Venable, 1995.2

Glenn Ligon's paintings consist of stencilled texts that
have special meaning for him, usually pertaining to race
and identity. The quotation in this work is from Richard
Dyer's The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation.
The thickly encrusted black letters against a black back-
ground are often difficult to decipher. The word "white"
is less thickly painted, however, and thus more legible,
underscoring the theme of the text.