Glenn Ligon's *Study for Negro Sunshine #49* layers coal dust, oilstick, pencil, and gesso on paper to create a densely worked surface where language emerges and dissolves into near-illegibility. The phrase "negro sunshine," borrowed from Gertrude Stein's writing, is repeated across the composition, its letters becoming progressively obscured by the accumulation of dark, sooty material. Ligon's process-driven approach transforms text into texture, probing the tension between visibility and erasure as a meditation on Black identity and representation.