Insights into an Artistic Practice through Self-Reflection

The paper discusses insights from a post-disciplinary artist who reflects on his artistic practice. This case study is written from an autoethnographical perspective, in a narrative-evocative voice, contextualised with Moon’s strategies of reflective learning and the Socratic method. Adapted on Moon’s suggestions and based on the Socratic discourse of self-examination, semi-structured questions for the self-reflection have been prompted whilst reading texts of Bergson’s process philosophy. These questions have then been scrutinised if and how they are relevant to the artist’s practice. The artist also reflected on his emotions during the reflective writing process and in retrospective thereof which further developed the writing process and content selection of the self-reflection. The general aim of the subjective reflection was to verbalise the complex layers of meanings that are inherent in his artistic processes. The author anticipates that the self-reflection could serve as a case study for students in mainly, but not exclusively, tertiary art education. Ideally, the research could be a guidance, or inspiration, for students to find their own sources for reflection such as writings, artworks or exhibitions, which could trigger questions about their individual artistic processes and outcomes. Based on the artist’s experiences, in the context of his on-going doctoral research, such self-reflections could enhance other students’ and artists’ metacognitions as competencies to better communicate their own artistic practices.