Theorizing the Components of Visual Arts as a Tool in Creating Knowledge in Contemporary Academic Discourse

Abstract

What constructs and gives understanding to new knowledge, its evaluation and meaning seems to dominate discourse these days in the university space, especially since the introduction of the visual arts field as a research degree in the university. What is new knowledge in the context of visual arts in an intellectual community like the university? Does art create knowledge in any given platform? What would be the methodology in this field? Can the body of the visual arts manifest a clear process of critical thinking, debate, and create a clear methodological process of creating new knowledge? Jelili Atiku and Odun Orimolade employ performance and drawing as clear processes of expression and contextualizing of knowledge in the visual arts. In the same vein, the authors have interrogated the creative imagination of Emmanuel Irokanulo in his doctoral dissertation on renewal of shadow as a component of new thinking in contemporary painting as a source of qualitative understanding of knowledge. The wall hangings of Blaise Gundu Gbaden, also engaged as a doctoral thesis, have been critically examined as a knowledge generating aspect of visual arts research.

Keywords: Visual Arts, Research Degree, Drawing, Performance Act, Painting, Wall Hanging.

DOI: 10.7176/ADS/76-05

Publication date:September 30^th 2019