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In a compelling intersection of civic history and artistic depth, Faith Omole, a rising force in contemporary African art, has once again been entrusted with the task of immortalizing a national figure. Commissioned by the Lagos State NYSC Coordinator, Mrs. Christiana Salmwang.
Omole produced a symbolic portrait of the current Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. O.O. Nafiu; a work that transcended mere likeness and
entered the realm of cultural testimony.
This marked her second such commission. In 2024, as a serving corps member, she was commissioned by the former Lagos State Coordinator, Mrs. Yetunde Baderinwa, to paint the
portrait of the then Director General of NYSC, Brig. Gen. Y.D. Ahmed. What began as a service year project quietly became a prophetic chapter in her creative career; one rooted in reverence, representation, and remembrance.
“This isn’t simply about capturing a person, ” Omole explains. “It’s about honouring those shaping national consciousness. It’s about ensuring they are seen, felt, and remembered
through the language of ancient wisdom and modern symbolism.
”
Her artistic philosophy is deeply intertwined with personal longing. Born of a desire to forge emotional connections in a world that often felt distant, Omole’s art became a bridge between isolation and intimacy.
“I never had a real bond with my father, because he died when I was two”
she shares candidly.
“So relationships have always felt delicate. But art softened that for me. Itgave me the courage to feel.”
This emotional vulnerability fuels her ability to connect others to themselves. Through visual
storytelling, she has helped her subjects confront their stories and, in many cases, their silence.
Her work has moved many to tears, not for its melancholy, but for its uncanny power to reflect back the quiet truths of their lives.
Beyond its emotive potency, Omole’s art stands as an urgent call to cultural preservation. With painstaking research and artistic precision, she reclaims endangered African symbols and reintroduces them into the contemporary imagination. Symbolic bodies like Adire, Adinkra, Uli
and Nsibidi are her inspiration, each brushstroke a defiant gesture against erasure.
“These symbols are not just decorative, ”she reiterates. “They are philosophies. They carry the
values, spirituality, and familial depth we’re often at risk of forgetting.”
For Omole, these commissions represent more than personal milestones. They are part of a larger, almost sacred undertaking which is to archive modern African legacy using ancestral grammar. She paints with the precision of a historian and the sensitivity of someone healing.
Her vision, however, extends far beyond the canvas. She imagines a future where her symbolic art is embedded in everyday domestic spaces like curtains, bedsheets, woven into blankets that wrap families in warmth and wisdom.
“If children grow up wrapped in symbols of love, unity, and identity,” she says, generation that knows who they are and most importantly, who they come from.”
“we raise a This latest commission, endorsed by the Lagos State NYSC leadership reaffirms the power of
art not just as ornamentation, but as nation-building. As Omole sets her hands to yet another tribute, she carries with her a quiet promise: that memory is not only to be kept but to be reawakened, again and again, through the sacred labor of creation.
Through her work, Faith Omole reminds us that documentation is not solely the work of archives and history books. Sometimes, it is the steady layering of acrylic on canvas. Sometimes, it is the gentle act of remembering in full color.
And in Faith’s hands, that remembrance becomes revolutionary.
