Lightwork: Vinyl Saints In A Sound

Mixed media collage on canvas | 62 × 27 in. (66 × 31 in. framed)

Lightwork: Vinyl Saints in a Sound is a mixed-media meditation on️ on legacy, vibration, and Black sonic divinity. Constructed from layered vinyl records and sheet music, the work transforms archival materials into a sacred landscape—where sound is memory, and music becomes a spiritual language.
Each artist represented is distilled into a symbolic form, allowing color, geometry, and texture to carry the emotional and cultural weight of their voice beyond portraiture.
Louis Armstrong appears as a radiant sunburst—circular and expansive—symbolizing joy, warmth, and the outward-spreading brilliance of his trumpet. His presence anchors the work in ancestral optimism and sonic generosity.
Aretha Franklin is crowned through a simplified, three-point form rendered in purple and crimson. She embodies sovereignty, emotional authority, and the sacred power of voice—both regal and uncontainable.
Tupac Shakur is represented through a minimal triangular outline—sharp, grounded, and unyielding. Rooted in red and black, his symbol reflects resistance, truth-telling, and the tension between vulnerability and strength.
Leontyne Price rises as a crescent over a horizon line, evoking transcendence and elevation. White and emerald green speak to clarity, growth, and her role in lifting opera—and Black presence within it—into new realms of possibility.
Together, these forms create a visual frequency—a quiet but powerful communion between genres, generations, and spiritual lineages. Lightwork functions as both offering and archive: honoring artists whose voices shaped culture while acknowledging sound itself as a tool of survival, healing, and illumination.
This piece is part of an ongoing exploration of music as memory, vinyl as relic, and black sound as sacred architecture.