Professional Practice

What do you want your audience to understand about you and your art, beyond what the artwork can say on its own?​

​Elements to include on your artists statements:

• the subject of your work ​
• your audience, your purpose or motive ​
• the materials and medium in which you work ​
• the theories and methodologies that influenced your work ​
• your own personal perspective or background

From The Writing Centre, Writing an Artist’s Statement​

Resources about writing an artist statement, and resources that feature other artists talking about their own artistic practice. 

The library has lots of resources that can be helpful in developing an artist statement and help you frame the context of your own work. ​

Something that can be helpful when writing an artist statement is to read statements by other artists that are working with similar themes and techniques. You can find these in books that feature artists whose work you can relate to, or who are doing similar work to you; in exhibition catalogues (in print or online) which typically have essays about artists featured in a show or information about the show itself; and on artist and gallery websites. Encyclopedias are another source for general information about art movements, art styles, and genres, and can be helpful for generating a vocabulary to talk about your art. This vocabulary can be added to your concept map when you're building your statement. ​