Writing an artist statement — without art-speak
The statement is the most dreaded part of any application — and the one where you stand out most clearly if you drop the clichés.
What a statement has to do
Three questions, nothing more: What do you make? Why do you make it (this way)? What are you working on right now? Answer these three questions in clear language and you have a better statement than 80 % of the competition. Everything else — quoting art history, justifying your path, explaining the big picture — costs space the three questions use better.
The three questions in detail
- What do you make? Material, process, format — name them concretely, don't paraphrase. "I paint in oil on large-format canvas" carries more than "I engage with the materiality of paint".
- Why do you make it this way? The decision behind the form — why this material, this format, this approach and no other. This is the part that shows a position without proclaiming one.
- What are you working on right now? The current or planned project, concrete enough that a jury can picture it — not "exploring new directions", but what is actually being made.
The form
- Length: 100–200 words for the short statement in an application; half a page at most where more is asked. For exhibition texts or catalogues it can be longer — there the rule is: a tight, strong statement with room for images beats a long one nobody finishes.
- First person, present tense: "I work with…" — not "The artist investigates…". The third person reads distant in applications and belongs to the press-release register anyway, not to a statement addressed to a jury.
- Concrete before abstract: name material, process, recurring motifs before getting to concepts. A sentence like "I photograph abandoned industrial buildings in central Germany" carries more information than three sentences on "urban decay as metaphor".
An example — before/after
Before (art-speak): "In my practice I investigate the field of tension between memory and forgetting, operating at the intersection of different media in order to question social processes on multiple levels."
After (concrete): "I collect strangers' old family photographs at flea markets and paint over them in oil until only outlines remain. The images show what is left of a memory when nobody remembers who is pictured. I am currently working on a series of 30 paintings for an exhibition in spring."
Both could describe the same practice — only one of them gives a jury something to picture.
The cliché test
Try deleting: "questions", "negotiates", "operates at the intersection of", "field of tension", "on multiple levels", "engages with", "reflects". Is there still a text left that says something? Then it's good. Read it out loud — does it sound like you, or like every other statement a jury reads that day?
Statement and portfolio belong together
Juries read the statement next to your images. On a portfolio website the two sit side by side — the statement gets shorter and better because the works speak with it and not every detail has to be described in words.
Frequently asked questions
Does the statement have to be rewritten for every application?
The base version can stay the same, but the third part ("What are you working on right now?") should match the specific call — a statement describing a years-old project reads stale.
How does a statement for music or literature differ from one for visual arts?
The three questions stay the same, only the answers shift — in music it's more about sound language and instrumentation, in literature about form and language. Concreteness before abstraction applies across disciplines.
May I mention art history or role models in the statement?
Sparingly yes, if it sharpens your own position — not as a substitute for describing your own work. A statement that says more about other artists than about your own practice misses its purpose.
What if the call asks for a longer statement than 200 words?
Keep the same structure but deepen each of the three questions with an extra paragraph — examples, a concrete earlier project, more context on the current one. Concreteness stays more important than length.
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