Dialogues of the artistic process

This study investigated the artistic processes of notably accomplished visual artists. A theoretical framework drawn from sociocultural psychology was used to explore the dialogical interconnection of the artist with the social field, symbolic domain and situational materials of art making. Findings from this qualitative interview study identify three distinct orientations to the artistic process and the development of characteristic features of those processes. The three distinct types of artistic process are: Situational Orientation; Social Orientation; and Symbolic Orientation. Those orientations are described as follows: Situational Orientation: Artists with a situational orientation express passion for the visceral and physical qualities of working within the medium, the tactile dialogues inherent to their process and responsiveness to the perceptual transformations enacted through the manipulation of materials. The relationship between the artists, their materials and the emerging work on canvas was characterized as collaborative. Social Orientation: The social orientation was defined by three features: the focus on communicative meaning, the belief in art as a catalyst for change (both social and personal) and a generalized collaborative attitude toward the field of arts and public audiences for their works. Their core motivation is to connect, convey ideas and visually communicate to a generalized audience around issues of personal, social and cultural significance. Symbolic Orientation: The symbolic orientation was coherently defined by a passion for visual dialogues between the artists' ideas and artworks, both in progress and archived, and existing works of art by others, both historical and contemporary. This group of artists ground their work in the dialogical interplay between symbolic resources of the domain, the individual's ideas as metaphysical concepts and the reification of those ideas into a perceptual form.