This article explores the landscape of artful research in higher education through a critical qualitative content analysis of articles published in 41 higher education journals between 2000 and 2020. An analysis of 218 articles published over a 20-year period found (a) a steady increase in artful approaches to inquiry over time, across all tiers of journals; (b) an emphasis on participant generated forms of art; (c) an overwhelming use of visual methods, and particularly photography; and (d) the use of artful methods primarily in data collection. An implication of this analysis is that artful methods are not "new" or "fringe"--they are being published across the field of higher education journals at increasing rates. Thus, through mapping the landscape of artful approaches to inquiry, this article makes visible and legitimizes the wide variety of artful methods of data generation, analysis, and representation used in higher education research. Through doing so, this article also intervenes in the saturation of neoliberal research practices in higher education, offering a critical discussion about "what counts" as research in higher education.