A Reconsideration of Painting as a Material-based Practice within Contemporary Art: And the Value of Skills, Techniques and Materials in Teaching Painting

The text focuses upon and discusses the complex nature of materials, techniques and skills within contemporary painting, and explores how these aspects of painting continue to play a significant role when taught at undergraduate level.The text articulates the significance that knowledge of materials and skills play within painting, and how these elements can be situated and developed within a fine art painting curriculum.
The text also addresses how these fundamental components of painting are related to and informed by historical, theoretical and contextual debates. Key questions explored in the text include;
Can a clear grounding in tradition, both theoretical and practical, lead to innovation within studio practice?
How do material and technical skills fit within a fine art painting curriculum?
How have the competing theoretical debates that question the value of materiality redefined painting's relationship to practice and style?
Painting, both within fine art and specialist programmes should be informed by theoretical debates from different academic fields, including art history, the philosophy of art, aesthetics, visual studies and art theory. These are often competing fields of study that can create uncertainty and doubt about what constitutes painting as a practice. This essay explores painting's relationship to other media, analogue, autographic and digital including drawing, printmaking, photography and film all of which continues to be central to painting's evolution, and therefore is integral to any pedagogical framework.