28 Guidelines and Sample Statements
If you’re an artist who doesn’t know how to properly write your Artist’s Statement you’re not alone. When artists contact me for advice that’s one of the first projects on their wish list for me to help them with. In this article I provide 28 guidelines to walk you through the process of writing your Artist’s Statement. I also include the benefits you derive from having one.
At the end of the article you’ll find a few Artist’s Statements by Famous Artist Masters and a link to another article with many Artist’s Statements by Monet, Marisot, Mitchell, Kandinsky, O’Keeffe, and Klimt.
What is An Artist’s Statement?
An Artist’s Statement is an artist’s written description of their work. The artist provides the viewer with a deeper understanding of their intention and source of inspiration. An artist’s statement aims to describe, inform, connect with an art context, and present the basis for the work.
Why Do You Need Your Artist’s Statement?
As a professional artist you will be often required to provide an Artist’s Statement, such as when you have a solo exhibition or apply for a grant or juried competition, provide an exhibition catalogue, supply information for an arts writer, and more occasions.
A well-written Artist’s Statement is essential for any serious professional artist. It is one of the most powerful art marketing tools you will have.
There are many benefits to having a well-written Artist’s Statement. The Artist’s Statement offers you the opportunity to explain your creative process and inspiration. It is a verbal expression of how you paint, draw, sculpt, or produce your art in your chosen medium.
Your Artist’s Statement may attract like-minded organizations that will lead to opportunities to gain international exposure.
An Artist’s Statement will serve as a useful tool on its own, and it will also enhance your verbal communication about your art. When you are crystal clear about your creative inspiration you will be more convincing when you explain your work to a dealer, grant giver, writer, and prospective buyer.
People who are attracted to your work will want to know more about the artist behind it. The Artist’s Statement offers you the position to share your story, rather than leave it open to incorrect interpretation or confusion by others. You have the opportunity to explain certain aspects that may not be immediately apparent.
The Artist’s Statement helps you establish a stronger connection between your art and the viewer and ultimately sell more art.
Selling requires reaching out to prospective buyers. As your viewers learn more about you by reading your artist’s statement they will become more engaged with your work and their enjoyment and desire to purchase it will grow.
Hopefully I have convinced you on the merits of writing your Artist’s Statement!
28 Tips and Guidelines to Help You Write Your Artist’s Statement
1. It is important to find your own voice and not to copy that of another artist.
2. Write the Artist’s Statement in the first person, for example: “I am an abstract artist…”
3. For general purposes aim for an Artist’s Statement that is around 100-200 words.
4. Customize your Artist’s Statement for the individual(s) and/or audience that will be reading it. For example, an Artist’s Statement that you write to a grant foundation will be more complex than the one you post on your website to a general audience. The one you write for an editor of a art magazine will be different than the one you send to a general readership newspaper.
5. Explain the motivation behind your process. What drives you to make your art?
6. Explain how your work develops and evolves during the creative process.
7. Describe your medium and your style. What materials do you use? Why?
8. Relate your technique and style to your medium and your vision and philosophy.
9. Use “picture words” — adjectives — to describe your art, such as brightly colored, textured, geometric, haunting, surreal…
10. Avoid self-doubt statements such as “I try to…” or “I hope…”
11. Choose words and phrases that are understood internationally. What may be understood to Americans may have a different connotation to a European or Asian audience.
12. What genres, subjects or themes inspire you? Why? Discuss the way(s) in which your work, medium, technique or vision is unique, revolutionary or outside the mainstream.
13. If you work in series yet they are connected in some way(s), describe how they are.
14. If you work in series but they are dissimilar write a different artist’s statement for each series of work.
15. Write honestly and avoid writing in a condescending tone that speaks down to your reader.
16. Avoid grandiose, esoteric and egotistical expressions.
17. Avoid words that are trite and banal.
18. Avoid being overly technical.
19. View this writing project as an opportunity to define the critical conversation you want to engage through your art.
20. Avoid repetition.
21. Vary sentence structure and length.
22. Adjust the length of your sentence to relate to the complexity of the idea.
23. After you write your artist’s statement, try it out on someone who is not involved in the art world to make sure it is written clearly for different types of people, not just artists.
24. Check your spelling and grammar. Don’t rely only on automatic spell check. Ask someone who is good with grammar to proofread it for you in order to check for misspelled words and typographical errors.
25. If you find the task extremely difficult, don’t hesitate to obtain some coaching or editing help from a professional art writer.
26. To help you get started keep a journal to record your ideas, before, during and after a creative session in the studio.
27. Never copy another artist’s statement, however, it’s useful to read them for style, insight and inspiration.
28. Avoid the temptation to rely on using quotations of a famous (deceased) artist or philosopher as part of your Artist’s Statement. Instead, find your own words to express the same or similar idea.
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse explained, “I don’t paint things; I paint only the differences between things… I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me. What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.”
Georgia O’Keeffe affirmed, “I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted, as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn’t concern anybody but myself.
Chuck Close, a major artist of this century, expressed it well when he said that he felt “trapped” in other artists’ painting styles, as an abstract expressionist, until he formulated “new ways to make marks that make art.”
Alice Neel said, “The minute I sat in front of a canvas, I was happy. Because it was a world, and I could do as I like in it.”
Philip Guston shared, “Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again… I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over… Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.” He also advised artists, “Let your 3rd hand do the painting.”
Frida Kahlo exclaimed, “I paint my own reality. I paint because I need to, and I paint always whatever passes through my head, without any other consideration.”
Read Artist’s Statements by More Master Artists
Read Samples of My Writing for Artists
Find Out About My Writing Services for Artists.
Thanks for the advice and push to update my Artist’s statement. One needs to be able describe their artworks and reasons for creating the work they make.
Dear Roslyn, Thank you for your comment. Have fun updating your Artist’s Statement!
Renee Phillips generously shares a great guideline to for an artist’s statement.