Writing an Artist’s Statement: Tips and Suggestions

I purposely did not call this post “how to write an artist’s statement.” That’s because there is no definitive right or wrong way to write an artist’s statement. The main purpose of an artist’s statement is to augment your artistic practice. This could be by offering background information, an explanation of your process, or any other information that will enhance the critical understanding of your work. Below are some suggestions to consider when writing an artist’s statement.

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If you’re working on an artist’s statement, what about your CV? Check out How to Write an Artist’s CV in 10 Steps, or How to Write an Artist’s CV When You Don’t Have Much (or any!) Professional Experience.

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Why are you writing an artist’s statement?

A good place to start is to consider who you are writing to, and what you want to tell them. Is your artist’s statement requested for a submission? Then you probably want to offer practical background information on your process. This makes it easy for whoever is considering your work to readily understand where you are coming from. Writing an artist’s statement to accompany an exhibition of your work? This could be anything—simple, complex, poetic, practical, an explanation of what inspires you… or anything you want to augment your work.

Does your artwork need to be fully explained?

This is up to you. As a guideline, you should decide what serves the work best. Does the viewer need to know what materials you’ve used? This may or may not be relevant to the critical understanding of your work. Does the viewer need to know where your subject material came from? It may already be self-evident. The best thing you can do is decide for yourself what serves your work best.

Have you looked at examples of artist’s statements?

This in my opinion is one of the best ways to get a sense of what an artist statement is, what kind of statement appeals to you, and what you might want to include or omit from your own statement. There are many formulaic articles out there telling you “how to write an artist’s statement in X amount of steps”—but then your statement will be just that, formulaic. You should of course never copy or plagiarize from anyone else’s statement, but instead, look at other artists’s statements for inspiration and research. Below are links to some artist’s statements that you can read online:

Shoshanna Weinberger’s artist statement (scroll to the bottom of the page)

Jennifer Angus’ artist statement

Stephen Shore’s artist statement