An Original Investigation into the Relationship Between Nigerian Visual Art and National Identity Construction

The relationship between visual art and national identity construction is a long-established concern of art history and cultural theory, and examining how Nigerian visual art has participated in the construction, contestation, and evolution of national identity since independence constitutes an original contribution to both Nigerian art history and postcolonial identity theory. This study conducted an original theoretical and empirical investigation of the relationship between Nigerian visual art and national identity construction from 1960 to the present. A multi-phase historical and critical methodology was employed, comprising archival analysis of government art commissioning records from 1960 to 1990, systematic critical analysis of 60 works across five decades selected for their national identity salience, structured interviews with 20 art historians and 15 contemporary artists who explicitly engage with national identity themes, and theoretical synthesis. Historical analysis confirmed that post-independence Nigerian governments systematically deployed visual art in nation-building projects, commissioning monuments, murals, postage stamp designs, and festival arts that constructed specific visions of unified but culturally diverse national identity. Critical analysis of artworks from the civil war period, military era, and post-1999 democracy confirmed both artistic participation in and subversion of official national identity narratives. Contemporary artist interviews revealed a generation that simultaneously claims Nigerian identity as a creative resource and critiques its mythological construction. An original Contested National Visual Identity Theory was developed, proposing that Nigerian visual art simultaneously constructs, deconstructs, and reconstructs national identity in a continuous creative negotiation rather than serving a singular ideological function.