Edible art: Investigation of the artistic dimension of gastronomy

The purpose of this study is to reveal the creative individual characteristics of culinary artists, the factor that affect them in the creative process and the artistic and design features of their products. In this study, the basic interpretive design which one of the qualitative research models, is used. The data of the research was obtained from documentaries which are visual and audio documents and focus group interviews. In this context, 34 documentaries were examined. Focus group discussion on creative cuisine products was realized with seven experts in the field of fine arts, art education and gastronomy and culinary arts. Within the scope of the research, 20 chefs were observed. The obtained data were analyzed by inductive analysis approach based on the components of creativity. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, three main themes were found: "Characteristics of the creative individual", "Factors affecting the creative process" and "Artistic and design features of the products". As a result of the research, it is seen that the individual characteristics of culinary artists are similar to the characteristics of creative individual. In addition, there are many internal and external factors that affecting them in their creative processes. It has been seen that the creative culinary products of culinary artists have formal, semantic, sensory, affective, material and technical dimensions. As a result, it has been determined that creative culinary products have many features that are similar to the works of art.