Apr 29, 2023 7 min read How To Write a Great Artist Statement Part 2 In Part 1, we reviewed what makes an effective artist statement. Remember that an artist statement should: Cleary communicate important ideas about this artwork. And while you’re working on your statement, ask yourself: Is this sentence in my artist statement helping to show why my work is important? In Part 2 we’re going to analyze and re-write a fictitious example of an artist statement. The goal is to help you learn to deepen your written ideas so you can consistently produce great artist statements. We’ll also review and discuss five actual artist statements taken from recent Salt Spring National Art Prize entries. Re-write Example: Artwork title: “Hydrangea and Alice” “I have been making art since I was 12. My parents loved flowers, and always had a large garden. I became fascinated by the colour of my parents’ hydrangea, so I wanted to capture this memory of my childhood. Growing up with this flower affected me a lot. It taught me a lot about relationships. It was done with water colour. It shows the pink-red hydrangea blooms that happen with certain soils. My childhood friend, Alice, stands next to it. Alice grew up in poverty.” Let’s pull this statement apart. We’re going to analyze each sentence and try to understand what the artist is wanting to say. “I have been making art since I was 12.” How is this relevant to the artwork? If the artist can’t explain why this fact is important and relevant to the work, it is better to remove it to make space for more important information. “My parents loved flowers, and always had a large garden. I became fascinated by the colour of my parents’ hydrangea, so I wanted to capture this memory of my childhood.” This is an explanation of context for the work, and context is valuable. But doesn’t this vague statement create questions in your mind that you would really like the artist to answer? For example: What was it about the colour of the hydrangea blooms that the artist found fascinating? What emotions did the artist experience along with the fascination? Many things in life are fascinating. What made this so fascinating that the artist wanted to capture it? Wouldn’t it help us to understand this work better if the artist went a bit deeper to answer these kinds of questions? “Growing up with this flower affected me a lot. It taught me a lot about relationships.” Here we are starting to get into the heart of what this artwork is about: the young artist’s growth and learning about relationships, through her experience with the hydrangea. But we’re going to want to get more specific and explain how the experience affected the artist, and what she learned from the experience, and what the artist’s insight offers the viewer as well. “It was done with watercolour.” Great. It’s often appropriate to include the medium. Ideally, though, try to go further when talking about medium. Consider, for example: Why did the artist choose this medium? How does the medium add meaning to the piece? “It shows the pink-red hydrangea blooms that happen with certain soils.” Interesting — but why is this fact important to the work? “My childhood friend, Alice, stands next to it. Alice grew up in poverty.” Oh, wait! Why is Alice involved in this story? Including Alice in the painting can’t be accidental! And what does Alice growing up in poverty have to do with this? Stating that Alice grew up in poverty may be helpful to the viewer if that fact is not clear from looking at the painting itself. TIP Take notes about the work for your artist statement as you create the work. Example re-write “Hydrangea and Alice” elucidates a childhood epiphany about my poverty-stricken friend, Alice, triggered by my parents’ hydrangea bush. The hydrangea is extremely sensitive to soil acidity. Vastly different blossom colours — in this case, pink-red ¬— result depending on the conditions in which it grows. Was Alice’s poverty a personal or familial failing, or caused by a broader context so ubiquitous as to be overlooked? The watercolour is temperamental upon the canvas substrate. Just as I experienced at the age of 13, Hydrangea and Alice evokes empathy towards “the other” and yields insight about our collective agency to influence flourishing. Let’s break this down. “Hydrangea and Alice” elucidates a childhood epiphany about my poverty-stricken friend, Alice, triggered by my parents’ hydrangea bush. The first sentence introduces the context for the work (childhood epiphany) and the major elements (Alice and the hydrangea) that contributed to this epiphany and are depicted in the artwork. The hydrangea is extremely sensitive to soil acidity. Vastly different blossom colours — in this case, pink-red ¬— result depending on the conditions in which it grows. The second and third sentences explain key details about the hydrangea that are necessary for the reader to begin to understand the nature of the young artist’s epiphany. Was Alice’s poverty a personal or familial failing, or caused by a broader context so ubiquitous as to be overlooked? The fourth sentence explains Alice’s role in this epiphany. The watercolour is temperamental upon the canvas substrate. The fifth sentence provides detail on the medium. “Temperamental” is a carefully chosen word. Just as I experienced at the age of 13, Hydrangea and Alice evokes empathy towards “the other” and yields insight about our collective agency to influence flourishing. The final sentence provides some details about the work’s impact upon the viewer. You do not have to use this exact structure in an artist statement for it to work well. This is one way of organizing the different pieces. This example does show, however, a few of the major common parts of an artist statement that we mentioned in Part 1: The general background or context of the artwork Themes and meaning in the work Materials and technique used When editing your artist statement, you should take care to fix grammar and spelling. The larger goal, though, it to try to deepen the content by making it more meaningful and insightful. A lot of writing an artist statement is about thinking. Thinking about why you wanted to undertake the piece, what it meant to you at the time, how you see it now, and what you hope viewers will take away from it. Thinking about these things may take longer than writing the statement. That’s okay. This is hard work! TIP: Make the words work Artist statements are usually relatively short. This means that a few well-chosen words can add a big positive improvement. Look for opportunities to substitute common and/or vague words or short phrases with a single, highly specific word. Dig out the dictionary and thesaurus! Five Examples of good artists statements “The Listener” Liljana Mead Martin, Salt Spring Island, BC The Parallel Art Show: The Matt Steffich Jurors’ Choice Award winner 2021 “’The Listener’ draws upon subjects in ecology and speculative fiction to synthesize a carnivorous plant with a deep listener. The work consists of a tree trunk: although charred by fire, it acts as a nurse log for new growths and small sculptures cast from the artist’s ear. Blue-green, fluorescent petals sprout forth from brass stems, and glass bead droplets spill out of the growths to replicate perspiring nectar. Through magical realism, “The Listener” speculates on our current environmental conditions and the potential for learned exchanges with other forms of life.” “Between Rock and a Hard Place” Anna Belleforte, Amersfoort, Netherlands Salt Spring National Art Prize finalist 2021/22 “My ‘Places’ series looks at vernacular architecture in transition. All architecture, whether vernacular or monumental, echoes the society that built it. Fissures in communities eventually find their way into buildings. Decisions to uphold a structure or let it deteriorate are owned collectively. There is a deeper story than simply neglect. By capturing these moments of vulnerability, I want to express something about common human struggles. These works are built with pieces of paper: maps (of the east coast) transparently painted in acrylic, natural textures from magazine pages, and additional media.” “For Your Own Good” Christine De Vuono, Guelph, On Salt Spring National Art Prize finalist 2021/22 “’For Your Own Good’ (2020) is a sculpture inspired by our reaction to the threat of Covid to our elderly population, specifically in long-term care. Although the lockdown rules aimed to keep senior residents safe from the virus, the emotional toll of being denied any visits from family, friends, or volunteers is devastating. This piece, made of 100 carved figures from identical bars of soap, was then placed in mason jars, which in turn are placed on shelves. The sculpture allows us to look in on the miniature elderly figures, who look out at us, protected from sickness but denied human contact.” “Self” Tammy Salzl, Edmonton, Ab Salt Spring National Art Prize finalist 2019/20 “’Self’ links the collective turmoil of our interior lives to the changing global realities of the present. Inside a comically surprised floating toxic cloud lies an idyllic forest grove, one world within another. A pair of worn hands wring and twist within the centre of the glade. A haunting folk song begins to play as the viewer nears, embellishing the contrasting worlds with meaning and emotion. This work holds the fears and worries of being, the wonder and beauty of our troubled world and the combined strength and vulnerability of mortality.” MamaaⱢNi (A Transformation Mask) Dave Parsanishi, Port Alberni, BC Salt Spring National Art Prize 2017/18 People’s Choice Award – 3rd Prize Winner “Coming from conversations with Nuu-chah-nulth carvers, elders, and language teachers, I contrast the traditional transformation mask with the Canadian attempt to transform First Nations people by “removing the Indian from the child.” This is a process of my own reconciliation to the actions of my culture. With the mirrored eyes, I invite/challenge the viewer to see themselves both as the perpetrator and in the focus of the perpetrator.”