The Process of Art‐making and Creative Expertise: An Analysis of Artists' Process Modification

Abstract

AbstractThe present study investigates how emerging/young and established/expert artists create artwork, paying special attention to modifications in the art‐making process. Here, “process modification” is the means by which artists generate new artistic concepts by modifying elements of their previous artwork. To examine whether emerging artists use such modifications in the same manner as experts, we interviewed 28 contemporary artists (including 14 experts). The results reveal that most of the emerging artists modified their work unsystematically. Emerging artists drastically changed the subject/motif, method, and concept for their new artwork. Experts, in contrast, used Concept modification to generate new art ideas based on their creative vision and to produce more artwork series than before finding a creative vision. These results are discussed in relation to the development of creative expertise.