People’s Reflections in the City: Exploring the Painting Practices of Figurative Expressionism by Academic Research

Abstract

This paper is a practical outcome of a multidisciplinary research project conducted by the authors on the contemporary and modern practices of the Improvisation in Arts. All the authors are research-oriented practitioners in the fields of visual arts, performance arts, multimedia, Information and communication technologies as well as vocational training. Furthermore, the drawings, paintings, and sketches are all made by the correspondent author Assistant Professor Dr. Mohammed Baker Mohammed Al-Abbas as part of his research-oriented artistic practice through the hybrid painting techniques.

Abstract

The present studio-based paper aims to explore the creative reflections of the aesthetics of otherness within the practical phases of the painting production. This paper represents an experimental endeavor to create a two-dimensional artwork, which is a hybrid painting technique on canvas with mixed media and acrylic paints. Within such a specific practice-based context, each phase of this practical approach outlines a critical significance from the first phase of creating that painting to the completing phase. The practical methodology is the tool that converts the researcher's/artist's vision into creative academic production. The process of creating the painting on the canvas is the methodology; such manner turns to be a primary reference for the present exploration. There is a significant paradigm in this approach, which focuses on the artwork as a morphological creature being created by the researcher/artist rather than a consequent result that only exists as a finished/complete/polished outcome. The outcome of this research is the record of the artwork production itself. This record presents visual references of the artwork progress as well as a textual reflective narrative to describe this process with written words. This research-oriented artistic attempt introduces the artists and researchers in the domains of the Fine Arts to integrate the process of art-making into the methodologies of academic research. It is an academic text, reflective text as well as sequential images recording the artwork making. This studio-based experimentation is significant because it examines the aesthetics of the otherness into the expressive figurative abstraction in painting. Furthermore, the impact of such a studio-based approach manifests on advancing applications of the artistic oriented research in the field of Fine Arts globally on curatorial and academic levels.

Keywords: Contemporary Art Practice, Studio-Based Methodology, Practice-Based Research, Hybrid Painting Techniques, Multimedia, Mixed media, Photography

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-10-08

Publication date: April 30^th 2020