The Painting Room: A Painterly Approach to Research

This paper seeks to document and explore the organic nature of visual art research conducted in a university setting with a predominately engineering world view. It will examine the interface of the artistic process and pedagogical practice. The elastic nature of the painting process combined with intercultural discussions emerging from the American teacher-Singaporean student relationship created new directions from the originally intended research. The projects that will be discussed are the 'tradigital' painting series 'Glut' by Bridget Eileen Grady which investigates the idea of consumption and its effects on the environment and culture combined with a collateral project entitled 'Visual Feast'. The 'Visual Feast' series is a research collaboration with the principle artist and Digital Animation students from the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore. These students documented Singaporean food culture through the traditional oil painting process in an Atelier format. The students received training in observational painting methodology and functioned as 'guild' apprentices 'feeding' the project of "Glut" with their visual research. The 'process' and format of the combined projects began to reach across disciplines in its visual culmination and its originally intended artistic and sociological domains. The paintings and the process became an invitation to dialog. This in turn created a space through which those involved could move beyond traditionally conservative Singaporean attitudes and open up new areas of communication with their families, and the wider community.