At Wesleyan University, Ligon studied the works of Black writers like James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston—authors whom Ligon would later quote in his paintings. At the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Ligon shifted away from the Abstract Expressionism he had admired and explored and began incorporating text in his paintings, which has since become a hallmark of his practice.

Ligon’s paintings, featuring the stenciled writings and speeches of cultural figures like Baldwin, Hurston, and Richard Pryor, play with the legibility of language and meaning and the instability of his medium. His texts, using the ambiguous “I,” assert a demand for visibility and humanity for Black Americans in the past, present, and future. In his other works of neon, photography, and print, he transforms elements from his autobiography into symbols of both personal and collective experiences. His site-specific installation for the Studio Museum, Give Us a Poem (2007), a large neon referencing a quote by Muhammad Ali, demonstrates his unique ability to assign new meaning to language by representing it as material for visual art.

Ligon received his BA from Wesleyan University and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. His work has been featured in Studio Museum exhibitions such as Glenn Ligon: Stranger (2001); The Bearden Project (2012); and Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art (2014). He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1997); the Skowhegan Medal for Painting (2006); and the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum (2009).