Artist Statement Guidelines

 The final project of this class will be a Virtual Exhibition, which means you will create a work of art based on your chosen theme of social justice, presenting an image of your work in the exhibition. You will also craft an Artist Statement to accompany your work. Use the following guidelines as you begin to craft your Artist Statement. Overview Artists’ statements, depending on intended need (writing a proposal for a show, an exhibition catalog, a grant application, or a letter of intent for a job) and audience, are varying in length, form, and substance. The following are some of the elements to take into account based on your work’s Visual Aspect (visual presentation), Conceptual Aspect (conceptual and or theoretical l background), Technical Aspect (working methods, skill and technique):Your audience

Your purpose or concept – be able to articulate intellectually and academically what your work really try to communicate. The materials and medium in which you work – not merely these are your area of specialization but also sometimes carry out your concept(s)The subject of your work – related to conceptual aspect of your work. The artists, theories, and methodologies that influenced your work – context of your work your own personal perspective or background. Ideally, the Artist Statement should not be longer than 500 words. The interconnected relationship of this information makes it very difficult to break down into separate categories. Because artists’ statements vary, you might need to read and consider a variety of examples for constructing your own.

Further Description

You can find statements of others provided in exhibition catalogs as well as those on the link to artists’ statements on the Web. Questions to Ponder Who are you? What is your background? Are you a student, a practicing artist, or both, a collector, a curator, or an observer? Are you showing your work? In what kinds of venue? What is your educational background? How did your ideas develop? Are you curious about other cultures? Are you interested in exploring gender issues, theories, memories questions of identity, the relationships between form and function, certain shapes, brush strokes, shots, etc.? How does your background influence your work? Are you haunted by various forms of painting, photography, sculpture, film?

What is it you like to explore? What medium do you prefer to work in? Consequently what did you initially set out to explore, investigate and discover? How did this perspective change as your work took shape? Audience, occasion or situation: What prompted you to write this statement? Is this a 300-word statement that is meant to accompany a grant proposal, or a 1,500-word statement that will accompany a catalog or a book? Obviously, if you are writing a 300-word statement and you are having to explain your artistic process as it reflects your experiences in the art department program, you will mostly want to focus on your personal perspective, your own process of exploration, and/or the methodologies and theories that have influenced you the most.

Additional Information

Your viewer/reader will already be aware of who you are, your purpose and the occasion. But this certainly will not be the case when you are applying for a job, writing for a catalog. Or providing information that will be used on a didactic panel that is part of a larger exhibition. In the case of such a wider audience, you might also mention who your intended audience is-in other words, for whom you make your work. This is often integrally related to your choice of venue, and you might consider mentioning this fact in light of the work’s presentation in a specific context (physical shape).

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