What is an Artist Statement and why do you need one?
The artist statement is an essential document for every artist seeking a professional level of practice. Artist statements help audiences connect with your work and are required for application to certain opportunities, such as MFA programs and applications for grants, residencies, and exhibitions.
Even for the experienced professional, artist statements can be a challenge to write. Verbalizing abstract visual concepts can be especially difficult. Identifying broad themes and connections between disparate projects complicates matters further still. In the end, however, just remember that the goal of the text is simple: to answer readers’ basic questions about what you make, how you make it, and why.
As the former publisher of Peripheral Vision, a contemporary art journal specializing in long-form essays and interviews for underrecognized mid-career and emerging American artists, I have read thousands of artist statements and edited approximately 200 for publication. Both mid-career and emerging artists struggle with writing effective statements, yet their writing is often marked by very different problems. Mid-career artists may have outdated documents that do not reflect the current state of their practice or they may be writing in a specialized vocabulary that is difficult for general readers to understand. Emerging artists and prospective graduate students, on the other hand, are still working to reconcile inconsistencies in their work or identify dominant themes and possible creative trajectories. For both groups, situating one’s production within relevant social, historical, and aesthetic contexts is a chore, often due to a lack of meaningful engagement with the vast corpus of art historical literature.
When writing your artist statement, whether on your own or in consultation with a professional editor like me, consider the following advice to save time and ensure a successful result.
When writing, be clear, concise, and to the point. Even experienced readers will expect well-lighted prose free of art jargon and complex theoretical concepts.
Write a statement tailored to each of your audiences, whether for general readership on your website or for an application.
Create a short version of 150 words or fewer plus a long version of 300 - 500 words.
Offer the reader at least one key avenue for accessing the meaning of your work that will enable them to discover deeper levels of meaning upon further examination. This could be a broad theme, social issue, metaphor, or some element of your process that allows the audience to experience your art in relationship to a broader context.
To begin the writing process, identify how much of your practice you wish to cover. Are you writing a statement about the last three years of your production? Are there parts of your production you do not include in your formal portfolio, such as commercial art, commissions, or very early work? Once you decide the scope of the statement and the work it will cover, jot down rough notes regarding the materials, processes, themes, issues, and references your work engages with. If you have two or more bodies of work, locate their points of intersection to better identify what drives your practice.
When you have a robust set of notes, identify the audience to whom you are writing. Select the content that will best suit the needs of the audience, eliminating ideas and content that may be too specialized or that may lack interest for a particular group of readers. Determine the length of the document and budget your word count to include only the selected content.
Your artist statement should answer the What?, How?, and Why? of your practice, in that order. Firstly, answer the question: What do you create? Perhaps you make paintings about generational trauma accompanied by occasional video work. Say that in as direct a way as possible, alerting the reader to what makes your paintings and video distinctive, such as scale or iconography.
Secondly, answer the question: How do you make it? Observers always love knowing how art is made, especially if the process is in some way distinctive, new, or historically/symbolically significant. If you are a painter, for instance, do you make your paintings in a single day like Belgian artist Luc Tymans or do you make your work in layers over a span of several days, weeks, or months like Chinese artist Wang Guangle. Do not forget to include relevant information about sources and inspirations, especially if this information is relevant to your process, such as when working with archival photographs or using digital softwares.
Finally, answer the question: Why do you make it? This is the part of the artist statement where you should communicate the meanings and messages you want to convey to viewers. It is also a good place to discuss anticipated or actual viewer responses. Identify broad themes your work addresses, such as “identity politics” or abstract concepts like “displacement” and “hybridity.” It helps to tell your readers directly how the appearance of the work communicates these themes. By offering readers one or two takeaways, you free yourself from explaining away the mystery of your art while also sparking curiosity about additional meanings and points of reference.
Longer statements of 300 - 500 words will likely need to cite individual series or bodies of work by title, including discussion of what makes them distinctive within your oeuvre as well as how they relate to broader practice concerns.
Once you have a draft that you like, seek advice from your colleagues or from a professional editor with an art writing background like me. As a practicing artist, educator, curator, and art historian with 20+ years of professional experience, I relish the opportunity to help you refine your vision and achieve the recognition you so rightly deserve.
Contact me today to discuss my affordable writing and editing options for professional fine artists in the visual arts.
Initial consultations are free; draft review is only $25 and includes detailed notes on structure, topic, and tone of voice and a quote for the service that best meets your needs.
Learn more about writing and editing services here or by calling Scott at (505) 603-9404.