Peer-reviewed article
Adaptation of Stained-Glass Techniques for the Exploration of Child Labour in Painting
Rahila J. Zira, Nura Garba ·
Summary
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Abstract
Art has long served as a potent tool for social commentary, capable of transcending linguistic and cultural barriers to evoke empathy and provoke social reform. This study, Adaptation of Stained-Glass Techniques for the Exploration of Child Labour in Painting, reinterprets the aesthetic and structural principles of stained glass, its colour fragmentation, geometric segmentation, and luminous interplay with light, as conceptual strategies for visual advocacy. Historically used to convey moral and spiritual narratives, stained glass here becomes a metaphorical and expressive medium for addressing the issue of child labour in Nigeria. Through a conceptual and studio-based approach, the research adapts stained-glass aesthetics onto canvas using techniques of colour gradation, symbolic segmentation, and abstraction to depict the fractured experiences of working children. Drawing inspiration from Piet Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism and Yusuf Grillo’s planar compositions, the study merges modernist abstraction with African social realities to reveal how beauty and moral consciousness can coexist in postmodern painting. The resulting artworks embody emotional tension between hardship and hope, transforming sacred visual language into an instrument of empathy, education, and reform. The findings affirm the potential of art as a tool for social advocacy and propose stained-glass adaptation as an innovative framework for engaging humanitarian themes within contemporary studio practice.