Using writing to help define and further your art practice (Re)Sources: Edwina fitzpatrick, Artquest, Andrew Simonet, Colin Perry, Glida Williams, Lucy Day, Isabelle Gressel The Artist s Statement Introduction This section of the Source is about becoming more confident in writing about your art practice. It focuses on the dreaded artist s statement for six reasons. 1. There are a lot of really bad artist s statements out there. 2. Your artist s statement supports you in defining what your studio work is about, thereby claiming your art practice. It helps you in identifying the core research questions, which encompass everything you make. 3. It helps us verbally articulate our practice hence the inclusion of the lift conversation in this section. That is to say, the short pitch you feel comfortable with and own in case one day you are in a lift with someone that you d really like to work with and they ask you what your work is about. They are getting out at the fourth floor, so you need to be concise and engaging. 4. Almost every application you ll send out will involve an artist s statement. It is the first hurdle towards being short- listed. 5. It is a dynamic piece of text, because we need to keep adapting this core statement to engage with each proposal we submit. 6. It is likely to be on the home page of your website. Hence the guideline for these at the end of the Prezi.
On a survey of the current MFA Fine Art students at Wimbledon College of Arts, who have been involved with this project, about 10% said that they enjoyed writing, 30% said they loathed it, and the rest said that they hated the idea of having to write something, but really enjoyed it when they got stuck into it. We aim to make this process both more rewarding and enjoyable, by getting tips from artists, students, lecturers, writers and curators. As with everything, there are points of disagreement between them. Please use what works for you. This Prezi is designed so that you can determine both the pace and how you navigate the information. What is an artist s statement? An artist's statement is a short piece of writing about your work, practice and any wider intellectual concerns. A statement should give the reader a better understanding of where your practice and interests come from, influences on you or your work, and support them in interpreting what you do. The following qualities make for a good artist statement Be clear: use as plain English as far as possible unless you are dealing with specific concepts, and explain them briefly. Don't use complex or specialist language unnecessarily. Accuracy: don't dress your work up to be something that it's not. An accurate statement about good work that deals with a relatively simple idea is much better than trying to make something appear clever by dressing it in hyperbole. Say what you see: it can be helpful to refer to any physical qualities of your work in reference to the conceptual ones. Explain the decisions that you made about how the work took shape and why you made them. Stick to your subject, which is your practice. The purpose of the artist statement is to talk in a focused way about your practice, not wider philosophical questions or concepts. Objectivity: use of superlatives and grand claims when describing your work will do you no favours. Try to be objective or at least use objective language when describing your own work. So what kind of information would you include in an artists statement? Here are some questions you might like to consider: What themes, ideas and concerns does your work uniquely consider? Are there any outside influences and ideas, perhaps from outside the arts, which have bearing on your work? What ties your individual pieces of work together into a practice? Is there an intention' behind the work; what do you want the work to achieve? Things you should not include in an artist statement include: Information about your career as an artist
Exhibition history Work history The heads- up about writing Writing involves three phases. Phase 1: the brainstorming part before you commit any words to paper because the thoughts are unruly and barely formed. You are also often gathering information at this point. (There is also a second phase of brainstorming when the writing is in progress, but you ve become stuck). Phase two: getting these ideas into cogent sentences and paragraphs. Phase three: edited them into coherent narratives. Edwina s key points are: 1. Get to know when you write best. If you are a night owl, don t try to start writing a text first thing in the morning. 2. Get to know where you write and research best. The three phases of writing often need different spaces. For brainstorming I prefer to walk something about the mind and body being connected seems to help. The editing and writing doesn t always have to take place at a desk I find working on train journeys very productive. 3. Get to know the ways that you procrastinate, and remove these distractions e.g. switch the phone off, disable your wifi. 4. Pace yourself. Learn how much you can write at any one sitting. Learn how much you can edit in one go. 5. Always proof- read from a hard copy, not off the screen. Don t trust your computer s spelling and grammar checks. 5. Read your text out loud to see if it scans well. Better still, get someone else to read it out to you. If you can t, then try a voice simulator the more stupid sounding the better. It is an excellent way to filter out any hyperbole. 6. Embrace writing as a dynamic, creative process in the same way as you do when making artwork. Practice in uncertainty. Sometimes the artwork resolves ideas, sometimes the writing does. Colin Perry s suggestions (A writer s perspective) 1. Enjoy reading, it helps support your writing practice. Find writers whose style you d like to emulate. 2. Enjoy writing. Colin suggests writing a short love letter to a sewing machine or a quick hate mail to a firework as a way of warming up your writing skills. You are a visual storyteller, why not do this through your writing? 3. Let your reader know what media that you use. Mixed media is a meaningless term give examples. Finds ways of describing your work that are both concise and engaging. 4. Editing is vital, whether it is self- editing or another person acting as your editor. Give yourself time to edit, so that you can come back to the text with fresh eyes. Revise at least two drafts, and if possible sleep on the text before sending it out. 5. Beware of using art jargon. It is possible to write clearly and intelligently without resorting to obscure art terms. Colin cited Hito Steyerl as an example of a good writer, because she explained her chosen terminologies before employing them.
6. Beware of: split infinitives (people only boldly go anywhere in Star Trek); duplicating verbs e.g. examine and question; overloading adjectives (e.g. my paintings are deeply lurid) and other written excesses 7. The nugget about the research question that should form the first sentence of your statement is often buried in the third paragraph. U.S Perfomer Andrew Simonet s suggestions: 1. Your artist s statement can speak in the same voice as your work. If your artwork includes collisions or humour, your statement can too. 2. Lead with what is distinctive about your practice, not what other artists do. 3. We need to tell ourselves and others why we do, what we have to give, and the big (research) questions that provoke us into action hence it being a mission statement. If the term artists statement is too limiting, re- phrase it is your mission statement. 4. Your artwork can t just speak for itself. We owe it to the work to represent it well in language. Gilda Williams ten most common pitfalls in writing your artist s statement 1. They all sound alike. Have a look at Stile s & Selz s Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artist s Writings for inspirations. 2. They are boring often because they are either vague or sweeping. Gilda suggests that smart detail will make your statement stand out and hold interest. 3. They sound phoney. Be honest. Write about what you do, not what you think people will want to hear. 4. They have nothing to say. This particularly applies to process- based or highly intuitive art there is a fear of pinning down the creative process by writing about it. Gilda suggests that you talk with authority and passion about this process if you feel you have nothing to say. 5. They read OK, but don t get to the core of the art. Beware of statistics. Try (short) anecdotes instead. Sometimes a well chosen quote helps. 6. They are indecipherable. Ground your reader using straightforward language, paint visual pictures with words. Finally, determine a key theme, idea or principle, which underpins all of your current work. 7. They are too long. Aim for 200-250 words, and write concisely. 8. They fail to communicate what the reader wants to know. Tailor your basic statement to the specific gallery/project that you are applying for, whilst bearing in mind point 3. 9. They sound megalomaniacal. Don t specify what you think the audience/viewer will understand from your work. You don t know. Keep away from grandiose statements that you can t back up. 10. Artists communicate better in images than words. Practice makes perfect. Williams suggest that you imagine you re writing directly to the one person who understands your work best. Or do an interview with a friend and pick out the core ideas.
Finally she suggests that you write a great statement a mission statement and live up to it! (See Andrew Simonet). Lucy Day s suggestions on the artist s statement 1. Write in the first person. 2. When do I include autobiographical matter? Only when it is directly relevant e.g. if your work is about otherness or diaspora in China, it is relevant to say that you are Chinese. 3. Tell us about what media you use. Curators need to know if your work includes for example sound when putting together a group show. How artist s Statements Change Artist Isabelle Gressel writes on how the development of her practice during the course of LIFE BOAT is reflected in her artist's statement. This past year has been so full of surprises and developments, it is difficult to try to sum up the experience in one concise paragraph. One strand of slow change has been my artist statement and in hindsight, it sums up this year s residency nicely. Artist statements are a frustrating yet necessary challenge; trying to explain one s practice clearly without pigeon- holing yourself is a nightmare at the best of times. Yet, once the initial hesitation at writing has been overcome, it can prove to be an enriching and vital part of your practice. It is one of the few places where in written form, you can present yourself wholly as you choose to be seen. The tortuous process of writing your statement is also self- educating. In presenting yourself, you have to consider how your practice can be viewed by those unfamiliar with it, what your overriding themes are as well as explain its relevancy within contemporary art Over the past few years, I have been slowly changing my statement but never redoing it completely- it has been a matter of allowing it to morph and redevelop itself around the ideas that I had been working on. The artist statement is where I can reflect on how I ve progressed and give an insight to where I ll be developing next. Below you ll find two artist statements, the first being written at the start of the LIFE BOAT Residency, and the latter at the tail end of it. They seem a fitting illustration of how the residency allowed me to develop of the past year. Statement Summer 2012 Our everyday lives are structured by rituals composed of journeys to and from work, household chores, greetings and social expectations. To function in a society and place oneself within it, we construct (whether consciously or not) an elaborate labyrinth of facts that solidify our identity. We observe others, and try to perceive ourselves as others perceive us. A distinction occurs between our public behaviour and our private behaviour. We continually make decisions on how to behave and place ourselves in our daily routines.
My aim is to create works that question these routines and explores the manner in which we observe and choose to react to a situation. To do so, I create projects or interventions where the viewer interacts with a situation. The situations take elements of the everyday (a pavement, a gift, a clock, balloons) that have been stretched into a new narrative, a new structure (a set of instructions, a change in the space). Using various strategies such as humour, tactility or narrative, the viewer is able to become engaged with the work. And as the viewer reacts, their perception of themselves, of others and their environment can subtly shift and thus be questioned. In this initial statement, there is a sense of we, that I am part of the work as much as the public is. With works such as Walking Across London in a Cloud of Balloons where I was physically in that Balloon Cloud, this was literally the case. However, during the residency, my practice has changed my position into one of an observer and collector of information. I specifically targeted this theme in the work E2 Pelican Crossing where I observed pedestrians walking across a pelican crossing. A distance has been created between myself and the viewer and clarifying this in the next statement was essential. In December 2012, a photographer made the observation that the projects I was working on were less interactive than the previous. It hadn t been a conscious choice, but upon reflection, I realised it to be true. As I focused on becoming more distant from the viewer, the works were also starting to create a parallel distance with the viewer (a position I was not keen on). It was a helpful observation as it made me reconsider my choices of how much I wished the viewer to become physically engaged with the works. This helped me direct the realisation of pieces such as Daily Navigations from the Home (a tactile sculptural work) and A Modicum of Recognition (a motion- detecting light piece) where the physicality of the viewer is key. Finally, though the first statement had a larger focus on the differences between private and public behaviour, and it is a subject I still find interesting, but my practice during the residency shifted away from this and has focused on circularity and repetition in daily life. The changes in my practice (that of my position, the engagement of the viewer and the themes of the work) meant that I had to re- work my statement to reflect them. Statement Winter 2013/14 My practice is centralised around human behaviour with each other and our city environments. Through playful sculptures, video and performative installations, I explore the dialogue between the rhythms of everyday life and the personal narratives that unfold through them. Daily life is structured by circular rituals such as waking, meals, work, socialising and sleeping. These patterns often dissolve into unmemorable repetitive actions, allowing only the singular out of ordinary events to be remembered. I strive to collect and scrutinise the seemingly mundane patterns of our lives. And then to distil them to create works that investigate our understanding of repetitive actions and
the unique poetic differences within our routines that demonstrate our conscious and unconscious need for individualisation. Through interaction with the pieces, the viewer is invited to consider their perception of others, themselves and their environment. I also create playful text based works that push the limits of context and understanding. Through innovative presentation and narrative, the reader/viewer must decide for themselves where the truth in the work lies (if there is one). You will notice some phrases remain in all three, and some paragraphs are completely changed. They may appear to be almost identical yet all the minute changes were made through careful consideration. Thus I feel my artist statements are a good illustration of my concerns changing over the past twelve months. One element I feel I need to work on incorporating in my next statement is the notion of narrative fiction that re- opens through the collection of data. Statements highlight the difficulty in trying to address all the issues in an artistic practice and should indeed only be an introduction for a reader rather than a distillation. I feel my current statement is slightly clumsy in its reference to text based work and needs to be worked on. All the more reason to start formulating my next statement! I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded this residency and now that is has finished, I can truly say that it has bridged that gap between university and trying to cut a career independently. What I retain from it mostly is the importance of building a community of artists to support and be supported by, and to allow yourself the time to develop as your practice requires it. The lift conversation Andrew Simonet s suggestions Conversation 1. CIVILIAN: What do you do for a living? ARTIST: I make large- scale figurative paintings and installations, often site- specific CIVILIAN: Or Conversation 2. CIVILIAN: What do you do for a living? ARTIST: I m looking at all the stuff we own, the things that fill up our homes. Where does it all come from? Does it make us safe? Does it overwhelm us? CIVILIAN: Yeah, I was just telling my friend the other day that. Lucy Day s suggestions: Look at people in the eyes Beware of specialist language that people might find confusing or off- putting
Create visual images in people s heads It s fine to say that you are unsure about some aspects of your practice Beware of the word unique Develop a lexicon of useful words and remember them Be objective don t use superlatives Be aware that there different conversations for different contexts Private views are not just social events. They are a place where you can work. Writing for your website Edwina fitzpatrick. These are some of the recommendations that we give to the Wimbledon MFA Fine Art students about writing for their websites. The home page is critical. It governs your bounce rate (i.e. people who leave the site after viewing the home page). This is a good place for your artist s statement along with a selection of visual material, reinforcing this text. You can set up Google Analytics to check what your bounce rate is. Consider how people research and explore websites. Create hierarchies of information. Sub menus are a good way for the viewer to be able to research your work more deeply and sub- sub menus work well for in depth information. Bear in mind that curators and commissioners are busy people, and want lots of information about your work before they approach you. Use hyperlinks so that your reader can drill down and get more and more information. It means that you keep each block of text s word count relatively low. Large paragraphs of text are daunting for the reader. Bear in mind that we read off a screen differently to reading hard copy. Keep texts short and sweet. Intersperse with images/slideshows/videos. Use sans serif, non- gimmicky fonts. Bear in mind a lot of creative people are dyslexic. Think about how you can make it easier for the text to be read, for example the background colour behind the text. When writing about each specific artwork or project, bear in mind the reader s needs. Explaining involves contextualising and describing. This tends to be neutral and un- opinionated. It helps the reader to approach your work. Evaluating encompasses judging and interpreting. This type of writing is authored and clearly presents someone s opinion. Writing about your work on a website usually involves explaining, but there is no reason why you can t use a combination of these approaches if it suits your practice. You can use different fonts and/or colours to present complementary or conflicting information, or for citations. This also breaks up the page and makes it more inviting to read. However, beware of overdoing it. You website is in the public domain. Who is your audience? Consider how specialist your language is. What is a short hand term for the art world - e.g. postmodernism - can be impenetrable to non- art audiences (who may still want to buy your work). Alternatively, provide links to a glossary of specialist terminologies.
Keep as much information on the screen page as possible. Be wary about the viewer having to use the right hand scroll bar too much. They may lose the will to live. Keep your writing concise. Blogs are often the opposite of this. Several website templates are set up to support the blog format, so won t help you to create a concise website easily. You ll be fighting with the structure all the way Be wary about using capital letters. They do not respond to spell checks and IT LOOKS AS THOUGH YOU ARE SHOUTING Check and double check for spelling mistakes. We recommend that you write all sections in word first and then copy and paste each section of text into the site. Typos look incredibly unprofessional Regularly update your website especially the home page. Completely rethink the site every 3-4 years.