3 Things To Include in an Artist Statement

Monday, June 5, 2023

Ah, the dreaded artist statement.

As artists, the images that we conjure up come naturally (most of the time). For some, finding the right words can be more difficult.

Not only do you have to try to collect the millions of ideas running around in your head and connect them; you have to connect them in a way that makes sense to the general public. I hate to break it to you, but these people viewing your work are not inside your head. As nice as that would be.

I have done my fair share of writing artist statements. I too have had the moments where I sat motionless with the vertical bar blinking on my blank screen — waiting for me to type something.

I have figured out a method that works for me and hopefully works for you as well!

To make this less overwhelming, I am going to break this down into three main questions you will have to answer:

1. What is the main overarching concept of your work?

2. What are the emotions that you wish to express?

3. How are you expressing this in your work with materials, imagery, etc.?

That's it.

The rest is the fluff, if you will — a way to further expand upon these ideas. It is important to note that the formatting of these questions along with the fluff can vary in length. The length of your artist statement should be the least of your worries as long as it's well written.

One of my artist statements was 535 words whereas the other one was just 240; if you would like to see examples of these (one I shortened), scroll to the bottom of this page, and the links are listed there.

Instead, I would be more concerned with how you answer these questions. Depending on your concept, your answer to #1 may be two paragraphs whereas your answer to #2 may be one sentence. There is no correct formula when taking into account the subjectivity.

Now, I will try my best to give you an objective formula and explain these main three questions more in detail.

1. What is the main overarching concept of your work?

Think back to why you created the work in the first place. Maybe you are commenting on a complex issue like climate change, or perhaps you are exhibiting a collection of plein air paintings that are not conceptually deep. Even with plein air paintings, you could say....

Ex. "I needed to step away from the chaos of my life and reflect on the quiet, simplicity of nature". Something like that.

Whatever it may be, there will always be a reason for the work or an overarching concept— a philosophy if you will. Find the reason; it may have come to you easily before you even started creating. Others of you may have to dig a little deeper, and that's okay.

2. What are the emotions that you wish to express?

There is always some emotional tie to the work you are creating because, again, you would not be creating otherwise. This connection is usually very deep, and you want the audience to feel that connection.

The expression of emotions could reference what you want the audience to experience when they see your work. It could also reference the emotions that you felt while creating the work — or both. I'll keep rolling with the climate change example. Pertaining to the destruction of Earth, are you focusing on your anger? Is it more important for viewers to be angry, sad, or guilty?

What is your end goal when it comes to people viewing the work?

Note: Even if the work is meant to be devoid of emotion, the mere mention of this could be conceptual — pointing back to the previous question.

3. How are you expressing this in your work?

Now that you've stated both your concept and what you wish for the audience to walk away with, how does this tie into what you've made?

There may be some connection with the materials you used and that could be important to mention. For example, I put chewed bubblegum on one of my pieces to represent my feeling of being used by someone. If the materials are important for someone to understand the concept, explain why.

You could just be using oil paint and not mixed media; therefore, it would not be necessary to mention the medium in your artist statement. You could still explain your choice for specific images in your work which support your overarching concept. In the climate change example, there could be work that starts off with large sheets of ice, and by the end of the series, there is a painting with just one ice cube.

The sequence of your work in that aspect would be important. Think about what elements of your work are most vital to touch on.

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If you would like a separate post on how exactly to format this altogether and in what order to write an artist statement, also comment down below. I would like to hear your thoughts!

In the meantime, my artist statement examples are listed at the top of the pages within my "Work" section.

Thank you for reading; if you liked this post, make sure to check out my other blog posts which I just put up this past week. I would also appreciate if you would give this a quick share with the links listed down below so that this article can help others; it also helps me out a bit!