Artists tend to dread the artist statement more than any other piece of writing, and it shows. Read a stack of them and you find the same handful of habits: sentences that could describe anybody’s work, abstract nouns piled on top of each other, and a determined effort to sound like a museum wall text. The irony is that the statement is one of the few places where you get to tell someone, in your own voice, what you are doing and why. Written plainly, it is an advantage.
What an artist statement is for
A statement is a short text that explains your work to a reader who has not yet seen it in person. It is read by jurors for open calls and residencies, by gallery staff deciding whether to look further, by writers preparing a press release, and by visitors standing in front of the work with a phone in their hand.
It is not a biography, which lists where you studied and exhibited, and it is not a CV. It is not a review either: you do not need to tell the reader that the work is powerful or compelling. They will decide that. Your job is to give them the information and the angle that help them look.
Most artists end up needing several versions. A general statement about the practice as a whole, a specific statement for a body of work or an exhibition, and a very short version of one or two sentences for applications, social media and introductions. Write the long one first and cut it down; the short versions are easier once you know what the long one says.
How long should it be?
There is no single rule, and the only length that truly matters is the one an application asks for. Many calls give a word or character limit, and exceeding it is an easy way to be set aside. When there is no limit, a general statement of somewhere around one to three short paragraphs, usually a few hundred words at most, is the common expectation. Shorter is almost always better than longer. A reader who finishes wanting more will go and look at the work. A reader who gives up halfway will not.
Before you write: answer three questions
Most bad statements are bad because the writer started drafting before deciding what to say. Spend twenty minutes answering these in rough notes first.
- What do you make? The physical facts. Medium, scale, process, materials, how long a piece takes. This is the part artists skip because it feels too obvious, and it is the part readers most need.
- What is it about? The subject, question or preoccupation that runs through the work. Try to put it in a sentence you would say out loud to a friend.
- Why do you make it this way? The link between the first two answers. Why this material for this subject, why this scale, why this process. This is where a statement becomes specific to you.
If you cannot answer the third question, that is useful information about the work, not only about the writing.
A structure that works
There are many good statements that break every pattern, but if you are stuck, this order is reliable.
Open with the work, not with yourself. Begin with something concrete the reader can picture: what the work looks like, what it is made of, what it is doing. Compare an opening such as “My practice explores the liminal space between memory and identity” with “I paint the houses my family has lived in, from memory, and then from photographs, and hang the two versions side by side.” The second tells the reader exactly what they will see and already contains the idea.
Then explain the thinking. One paragraph on the subject or question and why it matters to you. Be specific about sources: a place, a text, a historical event, an experience, a technique you borrowed from somewhere unexpected.
Then connect process to meaning. What the choice of medium or method contributes. This is often the most interesting part for a reader who knows something about art, because it shows decisions rather than intentions.
Close with where the work is now. A current direction, a new series, a question you are still working on. It keeps the statement from sounding final and gives a gallery something to talk to you about.
Writing it well
Use the first person
An artist statement is conventionally written in the first person, as “I”, because it is your account of your own work. Third person is for biographies and press releases written about you. A statement in the third person reads like you are pretending someone else wrote it.
Choose plain words
Every field has words that have been used so often they no longer carry meaning. In artist statements, words like “explores”, “interrogates”, “liminal”, “juxtaposition” and “the human condition” appear so frequently that readers skim over them. They are not forbidden, but each one should earn its place by saying something a simpler word could not. A good test is whether the sentence would still be true of a thousand other artists. If it would, it is not telling the reader anything about you.
Be concrete
Name materials, places, processes and sources. “I work with found materials” is vague; “I work with offcuts collected from the joinery workshop below my studio” is a picture.
Do not over-explain
A statement should open the work up, not close it down. Tell the reader where you started and what you were thinking about. Do not tell them what they must feel, or list every possible interpretation. Leave room for them to look.
Revising
Read the draft aloud. Anything you stumble over, or would be embarrassed to say to someone at an opening, should go. Then give it to someone who does not know your work and ask them to tell you, in their own words, what you make and what it is about. If their answer is close to yours, the statement works. If it is not, rewrite the parts they misunderstood.
Finally, check it against the images you are submitting. A statement that describes large paintings accompanying a portfolio of small drawings creates doubt. The text, the pictures and the list of works should tell one consistent story, which is also the point we make about what a portfolio needs.
Keep it current
Your work changes, and your statement should change with it. Revisit it whenever you start a new body of work or at least once a year. An out-of-date statement is one of the easiest ways to confuse a curator, particularly one who has followed your work for a while. It is a short document. Rewriting it now and then costs an afternoon and saves you from being introduced as the artist you were three years ago.
