Study on the Reupholster of Stained Glass Designs and “The Deceptive Silence of Stolen Voices”

Reflecting on the seminal theme of Biography as a provisional means of accessing artistic substance,
this study dares a reading of the metamorphosis of the artistry of the Nigerian glass designs of Frank
Ugiomoh and Nsikak Essien. Utilising an empirical analysis, principal art works of these masters are
examined. Site-specific Church images offer nuanced commentaries on biblical messages, Church
teaching and the Liturgy. With picture making tooling mechanisms and the story-telling traditions
commonplace in Nigeria’s art world. However, a hermeneutic investigation is engaged to aid an
unraveling of the tooling mechanisms and the art making traditions that the artists deployed in their
engagement with the natural synthesis cognomen in affecting the ecclesia in Africa paradigm. The
designs of Frank Ugiomoh are discussed with a hermeneutic detailing that draws attention to the
peculiarities of his artistry as emblematic in the growth and development of glass designs. However,
that investigation revealed (I) that the artist Nsikak Essien in re-upholstering his pictures diligently
sourced his devises on mimetic reinstatements of the canons of academe; but introduced lineal
schemes culled from the art forms of his Nigerian art world, specifically Uli and Nsibidi; while (II)
Ugiomoh toed the intellectually subtle repositioning of themes and tooling mechanisms, declaiming
the prime masters’ narratives but implanting a language of pictorial codes that deter the dearth of
symbols. The thrust of the discourse of power is a task that must be left to the exegetes of a future
paper.