Aims & Scope

Egghead – A Journal of Art (print ISSN 2636-4921) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Department of Fine Art, Faculty of Environmental Design, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Established in 1963, it publishes current, original, scholarly and well-researched articles in the visual arts, studio practice, art criticism, art theory, art history, design and allied disciplines. It treats the studio and the seminar room as complementary sites of inquiry, and gives particular attention to research that addresses Nigerian and African realities within regional and global discourse.

SUBJECT AREAS

• Painting and drawing — landscape, figurative, abstract and conceptual painting; drawing as an independent medium; line, form, colour and composition as visual language; the adaptation of techniques from other media, such as stained glass, into painting; and stylistic studies of individual artists and schools, including Uli aesthetics and photorealism.
• Sculpture, installation and mixed media — modelling, carving, casting and assemblage; found-object and recycled-material practice; site-specific and immersive installation; and sculpture as metaphor and social commentary.
• Graphic design and visual communication — graphic communication, illustration and infographics; semiotic and thematic analysis of images; visual advocacy and public information design; and graffiti, street and urban art.
• Design and craft — industrial design, textiles, ceramics, glass and other material practices of the studio, including indigenous production such as barkcloth and the apprenticeship systems through which such skills are passed on.
• Art history, theory and criticism — modern and contemporary Nigerian and African art; the Zaria Art School and other schools and movements; conceptual art, postmodernism and materiality; and the critical study of individual artists, works and exhibitions.
• Studio practice as research — practice-based and practice-led inquiry, the studio as a site of knowledge production, and the documentation and exegesis of creative work.
• Curating, exhibition and digital practice — curatorial practice, virtual and online exhibitions, digital media and new technologies in the making, display and circulation of art.
• Indigenous art, material culture and heritage — masks, costume and body adornment; the visual and material culture of Nigerian and African peoples; cultural change and continuity as expressed in visual form; and art as a means of documenting and preserving culture.
• Art and society — visual art as social commentary on governance, insecurity, marginalisation, child labour, segregation and peace-building; the economics of art materials and the art market; and the role of art and design in the creative industries and national development.
• Art education — the teaching and learning of art and design in schools, universities and informal settings, and visual resources as instructional material.

METHODS: practice-based and practice-led studio research that states its problem and objectives, documents the creative process and reproduces the resulting works; visual, formal and stylistic analysis of named artworks; art-historical, archival and documentary research; semiotic and iconographic analysis; ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and questionnaire surveys with a stated population, sample and instrument; and conceptual or theoretical essays and critical reviews that engage the existing literature and reach a defensible conclusion.

MANUSCRIPT TYPES: original research articles, practice-based research papers, and critical and review essays, of between 3,000 and 4,500 words including the abstract, references and appendices. Each manuscript carries an abstract of not more than 250 words and four to six keywords, is typed in Times New Roman 12 point with double line spacing, and follows the APA 7th edition style of referencing. Tables, figures, plates and diagrams are simple and camera-ready; images are supplied at 100% size and at least 300 dpi, and every image is captioned with the artist's name, the title of the work, the medium, the year of production and the source. Authors must hold written authorisation from the copyright owner for every image they reproduce. Manuscripts are submitted through the journal website as a Microsoft Word .docx file of not more than 10 MB, prepared for double-blind review: author names, affiliations and email addresses are entered on the submission form and must not appear in the manuscript file. Submissions must be original, written in English, and neither published nor under consideration elsewhere.

READERSHIP: artists, designers, art historians, critics and curators; lecturers, researchers and postgraduate students in fine art, industrial design, art education and related departments; museum, gallery and cultural heritage professionals; and policy makers and practitioners in the creative industries in Nigeria, Africa and beyond.

OUT OF SCOPE: papers on language, literature, media, communication or cultural studies in which no artwork, design object or visual practice is actually examined; essays on a social or political problem that mention art only in passing or use an artwork merely as illustration; studio reports that describe the making of works with no research problem, no engagement with existing practice or literature and no critical reflection; biographical or descriptive accounts of an artist, tradition or exhibition that offer no analysis or argument; studies of music, theatre, dance or film with no visual, material or design dimension; architecture, engineering or technology papers with no bearing on art or design; survey-based studies that do not report the population, sample and instrument; papers whose images are uncredited, uncaptioned or reproduced without permission; unrevised student project reports and theses; and manuscripts already published elsewhere or under consideration by another journal.