How to Write Artist Statements + Bios

Introduction

The way you write about yourself and your practice is so important to get right. It’s also super tricky to do, so we wanna help!!

Part One: What’s the difference?

To put it simply: Your artist statement should be about your practice. Your artist bio should be about you.

ARTIST STATEMENT

How long should it be?
We’d suggest that your artist statement should be between 100-300 words, roughly two paragraphs. To make the writing process easier, you can break these paragraphs up into firstly explaining ‘what,’ followed by ‘why.’

Q’s to ask yourself when writing:
Explaining the What = What do you do? What materials/methods/processes do you use? What themes or concerns does your work tackle? What do you want your work to achieve?
Explaining the Why = Why do you make what you make? Why is it important? (to the viewer and/ or to you) Why is your work unique to you?

ARTIST BIO

How long should it be?
Defos no longer than a page, usually aim for around 100-600 words. The length will really depend on its purpose. It’s always good practice to have a skeleton bio, which outlines the basic info. This can be applied to every use, then fleshed out depending on what you’re using it for.

Things you could include:

• A bit of background about yourself (your education, where you’re originally from etc)

• Things you’re most proud of in your creative career (exhibitions, awards, accomplishments)

• Some context about your work (most commonly, people write about why they started making work, and how it has developed over time)

• What/who influences you

• A sentence encapsulating your practice

Remember: Your bio is not a CV, but provides the reader with your history and includes a summary of your highlights.

Part Two: What’s important to the reader?

1. That you are clear, concise and compelling

• Clear = make sure you don’t settle with the first version you write. It’s important to ensure that your writing has been understandable and successful in communicating simply and clearly.

• Concise = try not to go over the length suggested. You wanna make sure that you keep your writing short and sweet.

• Compelling = make every sentence count, and ensure each one serves the purpose of revealing something new to the reader.

2. That they understand what you’re trying to say

Avoid using wordy jargon. Don’t try to sound smart by using overly complicated vocab. This is a super common mistake to make because of what we read in galleries, art books and traditional art criticism. It’s just not necessary and distances you from the viewer, probably hindering them from being able to understand, appreciate, or relate to your work.

3. Context
Who is going to read this and in what situation? You’ll want to adapt your statement and bio depending on where you’re submitting it to. For example galleries, magazines, insta caption: these all require you to think about the different settings and audiences.

Part Three: Our Advice!

Writing artist statements and bios is HARD. It’s so easy to write a bad one. So here’s some things to AVOID doing:

Avoid using classic buzzwords
They’re overused and often just a cop out. For example the likes of juxtaposition, visceral. (If you are going to use them REALLY think about if that’s exactly the word you wanna use, and explore other alternatives that make your writing more personal to you.)

Avoid dressing up something that is obvious, using what we call “empty sentences.”
Saying things like “my practice explores notions that are present throughout aspects and places in our society.” Like duh. Including sentences like this doesn’t add any context or real information about you and your work. Things like “I make work about the world around me” have the same empty energy, because it’s a given. Everyone makes work inspired by other things, what do you do beyond that?
A way to actively make sure you’re not doing this, is to read over your statement and think: so what? when you come across an “empty sentence.”

GENERAL TIPS:

• Read lots of other ppls statements and bios!!! This can give you a good sense of a) what others are writing about, b) how they are writing about it, and c) how you can be different!

• Know that making work and writing about work are two entirely different beasts to tackle and it’s ok if your schooling did a shitty job of preparing you for that!! It’s okay to ask for help!

• Before trying to format your writing, take some time to sit down with a blank page in your sketchbook and have a full brainstorm. Write out whatever comes to mind. Key words/phrases. Research topics. Materials. Concepts. Other art/artists that inspired you.

• If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough. Try and only talk about things that are fully embedded in your practice.

• Work with someone! We’ve learned more about our individual practices from other people than we ever expected. An outside perspective gives fresh eyes to a project and they can give really valuable insight about your work. We often make choices intuitively so it’s difficult to describe why we did the things we did.

• Try to talk in absolutes. Write in absolute sentences. Avoid using “I believe that my work is…,” “I feel my work highlights,” and “I’m aiming to…” This feels wishy-washy and that you're unsure of yourself and your practice. Instead, say “My work is…” and “My work highlights…”