Writing an Artist Statement

An artist statement is an important item in a professional artist’s kit. It gets rewritten as your practice and career grow, but it can be tricky whether you’re emerging or established. We’ve pulled from a range of articles and compiled the common advice that we suggest using. If you’d like to read more on this topic we’ve listed the sources at the bottom of this post.

Below the general advice is a list of writing exercises from a wonderful document created by the Ninth Street Artist Collective to help get you started. You can read the full document here and we highly, highly recommend checking out their other resources.

Advice

• Short! Strong!! Impact!!!
  • Be direct and use fewer words. This helps if there’s a word limit for submissions and ensures that your message is clearly communicated in an active voice instead of a passive voice;
    • Active Voice: “I explore…”; “My work investigates…”; “My art is about…”. These sentences are direct
    • Passive Voice: “I try to explore”; “My work is concerned with exploring the notions of…”; “I’m interested in looking at…” These sentences make you sound unsure about your work and add unnecessary length.
      

      Personally, I used to hesitate to follow this advice because it felt like making a claim I didn’t have the authority to make. But this is your artwork, you know it best! The less you worry about whether your work actually does what you say it does, the easier it is for the reader to see that your work is doing what you’re saying it does. -Kate G.

• Focus on the basics; don’t get caught up by over explaining, describing individual pieces, subverting the format, or trying to make it unique. Your statement will stand out when the reader can see clearly and concisely what your practice and motivations are.
• Is it implied and do you really need to include it? You want highlights– nuances and details are for artist talks or books. 
  • You spent enough time on art and finding opportunities. Your interest in and the importance of art is already implied.
  • Avoid references. Everything in art is a reference whether intended or not. References risk the assumption that everyone has the same education and experience as you and general references like art movements or artists that inspired you distract from your work.
  • Unless your work can only be understood a specific reference/context  or its meaning is directly related to it, do not include it.
• If using the following words, think hard about whether their use actually contributes to meaning or if they come off as filler words. They’ve been used (and misused)  so often that they can easily make a statement feel less considered or disconnected.
  • Juxtapose
  • Humanity
  • Human condition
  • Concerns
  • Chaos
  • Uncanny (unless it truly, truly is uncanny. Look up the definition.)
  • Notion
  • Speculative
  • Explores
  • Rupture
  • Troubled
  • Liminal
  • Controversial (unless it actually sparked controversy.)
  • Deconstructs

Writing Exercises for Artist Statements

Pre-Writing Questions

• Why are you writing this statement?
• Who will read this statement?
• What assumptions are you making about the reader’s existing knowledge?
• Where will this statement live?
• What do you want the statement to say about you and your work? • What is the desired takeaway from this statement?

Post-Writing Questions

• Does your statement achieve the goals listed during your prewriting phase?
• Is it free of grammatical errors and typos? Is it formatted to the specifications required?
• Does it meet the requirements of your audience?
• Does it read as professional and objective even with the first person narrative?

Brainstorming/10-Minute Writing Exercise

The best way to get started with an artist statement is to begin writing about your work in a 10-minute brainstorming session. Do it quickly, and don’t worry particularly about grammar or word-smithing. There is no structure or format to this. Just write or type everything that comes to mind about the piece.

Writer’s Block Exercise

• Invite some friends over for a studio visit (in person or virtually), while having a conversation about your work record what you are saying. Listen to your conversation later and choose the best excerpts to put in writing.
• Listen carefully to questions and comments about your work during critiques. Are some questions asked more than others? This is what people want to know about, and where you should focus your effort in your statement.

Questions to get you started

• What does it look like? (Size, colors, shapes, textures, light, objects, relationships, etc.) Make your description visual.
• What inspired the piece and/or where does the impetus for the piece come from, personally speaking?
• Talk about the work from a conceptual, thematic, and/or emotional point of view Ninth Street Collective | www.ninthstreetcollective.com
• Is there a central or guiding image or idea?
• What are its different elements and how do they affect each other or interact?
• What kind of materials did you use/are you using to create the work? Why?
• What was the process of development for the work?
• How does the work use space/relate to the surrounding space? What would be the ideal space in which to exhibit or present the work?
• How does this work fit into the overall flow of your development as an artist?
• Where does it fit into (or relate to) your awareness of other contemporary work?

Sources

https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/art-bytes/dont-say-deleuze-how-to-write-a-good-artist-statement-54662https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c92e9eb4d871179da3d7156/t/5fb2cc4eb09b474a32a54864/1605553230123/Writing+a+Great+Artist+Statement.pdfhttps://bmoreart.com/2009/04/best-professional-practices-for-artists-2.html
https://www.ninthstreetcollective.com/resources