Art Statement Assignment
50 points
What is an artist statement?
It is a general introduction to you and your work as an artist. It gives you the chance to tell perspective clients, gallery owners, etc. the who, what, where, when, why and how about your work from your perspective.
Who needs an artist statement?
Designers, photographers, fashion designers, interior designers, illustrators, painters, sculptors. Basically, if you do some type of artwork, you will need an artist statement.
Why do you need one?
This is your opportunity to convey the reasoning behind your work—why you chose a particular subject matter, why you work in a certain medium, etc.
For this assignment you will write your own artist statement.
What you should include:
The artist statement should be about you, not about the reviewer. You should explain what you think about your work, now about how the viewer should interpret it.
I want you to focus on the artwork you have created so far in college. You can focus on all the work, or on one particular piece.
Ask yourself the following questions before you start writing:
1). Why have you created some of the artwork you have done. What is its history? How does your current work relate to your previous work (High School vs. College)?
What influences your work? What is your inspiration for your images? How does this work fit into a series or larger body of work?
2). Create a list of words and phrases that describe your chosen themes, your artistic value, creation process and influences (i.e. experiences, dreams).
3). Edit down your list of words and begin to create sentences using these words.
4). Start writing. Begin with an overview paragraph that makes a clear and concise statement about your work, and support that statement with your reasoning. This paragraph should be broad in scope. Specifics will come next.
5). In the next paragraph, go into detail about how the issues or ideas mentioned in your opening paragraph are presented in your work (offer a specific example) and why you use the materials and tools that you do.
6). Point out themes in your work or discuss experiences that have influenced your work.
7). Finally, sum up the most important points made throughout previous paragraphs.
Other Tips
· Keep your writing simple, clear and to-the-point.
· Describe each portion in as few words as possible.
· Proofread and check for grammar, spelling, clarity and interest.
· Write in the first person perspective (I created. My experience).
· The statement should be no longer than one typed, single spaced, page. Use 12 point font, Times New Roman.
What You Will Be Graded On
1) Clear Overview Paragraph – 10 points
2) Clear paragraphs on details of your artwork, themes and experiences that have influenced your work - 10 points
3) Clear Conclusion – 10 points
4) Typed , 1 page, single spaced, 12 point font, Times New Roman – 10 points
5) Spelling, grammar, punctuation – 10 points
Total 50 points
Amy Alice Thompson | Artist statement
The quiet subtlety of Amy Thompson’s work belies an inner phoenix, a hidden knowledge that glints at the heart of mythic symbols. Composed of photographs and images gleaned from vintage catalogues, encyclopedias and other ephemera, her collages simultaneously evoke a familiar world—a bucolic realm of birds, insects, moonlight and natural phenomena—and invest it with a perplexing symbolic potential. In the strange inter-zone of these images, the moon flips upside-down, birds have the bodies of girl-children, starlight comes down to earth, and the fragile innocence of childhood haunts the night sky. At once mutely attractive and profoundly disconcerting, these quiet, inexplicable images make us wonder.”
Glint These pieces are a librarian’s daydreams; little glimpses of life, awaiting their escape from between dusty book jackets within the towering stacks. The librarian works quietly to herself, inputting, organizing, re-shelving, following Dewey decimal’s strict order. These are meant to be her inner world, a private menagerie.
Bird Girls Inspired in part by fairy tales, these works depict delicate bird-girl creatures plucked from a magical world. This surreal co-mingling of human and animal explores a world shared between nature and imagination and creates a sense of strange enchantment
Gu Xiong | Artist statement
I am a multi-media artist from China now living in Vancouver, Canada. I have a MFA and BFA from the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in China. I have taught at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, Simon Fraser University, Kwantlen University College and the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts. Now I am an associate professor and teach painting, drawing, printmaking and interdisciplinary classes at the Department of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia.
As an artist, I have exhibited nationally and internationally. I have received numerous awards from Canada and the United States. I have published two books, and written articles for art catalogues, magazines and newspapers. There have been many critical reviews of my work in Canada and other countries. I have twice been an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts (1986-87 & 1989-90), in addition to eight other colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. I also served on the Canada Council “B” Grant jury, Seattle Arts Commission jury, BC Festival of the Arts jury and the eleventh annual Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts Awards (VIVA) jury. I have collaborated with artists from England, the United States, China and Canada. My work is in collections in Europe, Canada, the United States and China.
In my recent work I am addressing the question of cultural identity and, in the process, a new synthesis is emerging in my own individual practice of painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, video, photography, digital imagery, text, performance art and installation works.
All cultures are complex, of course, but the one into which you are born is the one you come to understand most profoundly. Thus, this influence is what finds its way into the work of an artist, and I believe it is expressed almost instinctively. If a person should move to another culture, he or she must make both a conscious and instinctive adjustment in seeking to understand what at first is a strange new world. It is within this dynamic milieu that I currently find myself. This relatively sudden generation of “artistic electricity” is fueling change in both my personal life and my work as a professional artist and instructor.
This inevitable conflict of two cultures within my “artistic being” has entered my work since coming to Canada permanently. Of course, one’s whole approach to artistic creation is in a state of constant evolution anyhow. However, none of this can be expressed artistically unless the artist has the required techniques to create in the specific medium at hand. This development is occurring within me because of the significant period of my study and practice that I have experienced. The end result appears to be a new synthesis of my artistic outlook and competence.
This synthesis is undoubtedly affecting my work as an art teacher as well. I believe that visual arts education should encompass not only a rigorous commitment to the development of technical skills, but it should also endeavor to cultivate the young artist’s own personal voice and vision as a member of a larger global culture. The young artist should be encouraged, therefore, to trust his or her intuition in the exploration of a personal “psychological landscape.” Also they should have a strong grounding in contemporary theory and art practice. This is especially important as they move into new media and multi-media approaches to the production of art.
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