I have a friend who does oil painting in his spare time. He pays for it himself, choses the subjects, paints them to his own satisfaction, and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. I don't see how it could be a purer process.

He says he doesn't care. But he's human.
That said, this case could be extremely close to pure art. Which is very rare.

hhp

There are no pure artists or designers; an individual is always somewhere in between.
I think that's a different consideration, but you're right nevertheless.

I don't see how it could be a purer process.
That may be, but even if his whole process is intuitive and subconscious, he will still consider composition, style, contrast, color (contrast) etc. Even in its purest form, an artist will follow many of the same underlying principles of (graphic) design. To some extent art is design and design is art.

> an artist will follow many of the same underlying principles

I agree. Both artists and designers, in general, use similar principles based on how people react to different colors, styles, etc.

To me the main difference is their goals. For artists it's generally self-expression. For designers it's to communicate info on behalf of a client.

For artists it's generally self-expression. For designers it's to communicate info on behalf of a client.
Very true. An artist can take a lot of liberties; as long as it looks good or even when it speaks to you in a different way than aesthetically, it's art. When graphic design fails to communicate, it's just bad design. It's very hard to even see such a failed attempt at graphic design as art because the primary goals of art and design are very different.

In addition to artists, there are craftsmen who are not engineers or scientists.