I have summarized the more important parts of this article below. Let’s have a look at some tips for an artist bio and below it some tips for an artist bio for an emerging artist.
For a Professional Artist Biography:
For an Emerging Artist Biography:
Keep reading as I cover the topic in more detail, giving artist bio examples and the like.
Writing an Artist biography is probably one of the hardest things I have had to write. If you are reading this then I assume you are struggling with this as well.
Whether you are an artist making modern art, a painter or a visual artist looking for representation in an art gallery then you need to get your artist bio done right.
Here are some bullet points to summarize each for those who do not know the key differences.
Below are some bullet points that highlight the key differences between an artist biography, artist statement, and artist profile. I will then dive into more details of each with examples you can use.:
Before we start, you should understand the difference between an artist biography and an artist statement vs an artist profile.
Each one serves its own purpose and should be used for a specific goal in mind.
In its simplest form, an artist biography is a summary of you as an artist in a few paragraphs (some say 50 words is all you need). Artist bios should detail your qualifications and any training you undertook as an artist (if you are not qualified you can just omit this part). You then detail your influences, your achievements and contact details. It is usually followed by a brief artist statement.
An artist biography needs to take into account the life and work of you as an artist. It usually covers significant events and accomplishments throughout your artistic career, as well as personal information that helps to understand the context in which your art was created.
An artist biography can also include information about your artistic education, influences, creative process, and the evolution of their style over time. It may also discuss the critical reception of their work, as well as any awards or recognition they have received.
An artist bio should get to the point quickly. This is because the reader of the bio may have limited time or attention span, and may be looking for a quick summary of your artistic career and style.
A concise and well-organized bio can help to capture the reader’s interest and convey the most important information about your work in a short amount of time.
This can be really important in situations where you are trying to promote yourself or your art, such as when applying for grants, exhibitions, or other opportunities.
In addition, a clear and focused bio can help to establish your credibility and professionalism as an artist. It shows that you have a clear sense of your artistic identity and are able to communicate it effectively to others.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice depth or detail in your bio. It’s important to strike a balance between brevity and substance, providing enough information to give the reader a sense of who you are as an artist and what makes your work unique.
One thing to note, many artists refer to themselves in the third person which I believe can come across as a little pretentious.
Another pretentious artist is the last thing the world needs.
Using your own voice makes you more relatable.
Artist biographies can also be written by art historians, curators or other experts in the field. This is because artist bios can also be found in exhibition catalogs, art books, and online resources.
A great artist bio can provide valuable insights into your artistic life and work and can help to deepen our understanding and appreciation of your art, especially if art lovers find something in your back story that they can relate to.
An artist’s statement is a brief description of your work as a whole. The purpose of an artist statement is to give anyone looking at your work some context around why you work a certain way so that they can either connect with you or the subject matter. The artist statement should cover the “why” you do things and not the “who you are”.
You would usually include an artist statement as part of the artist biography.
The Artist Profile is quite interesting, it is a mix of both the artist bio and artist statement. The difference is the artist profile packages both pieces of information into an interesting page designed to ‘hook’ the reader into wanting to learn more about you as the artist as well as your art and your interests.
Think of the artist profile as the first page of a really interesting novel, designed to make the reader want to keep reading and learn more.
Use good story-telling techniques when planning your artist profile.
If you are struggling to write an Artist Biography and Artist Statement, try writing an Artist Profile instead as it lets you channel your creative energy rather than following a boring format.
Someone like Anselm who has a long and distinguished career, his artist bio can start to look like a long laundry list of accomplishments and doesn’t actually tell us anything new. My tip is to not follow this example (see below for an image or click on the link above to view his page)
Do not write a laundry list of accomplishments and facts!
Rhian Malin (though it is written in the 3rd person..)
I quite like Rhian’s artist bio even though it is written in the 3rd person. But if you take a look at their artist biography you will notice that the first line makes her personable. She was inspired by her grandmother’s collection. We can all relate to seeing something at a grandparent’s home that would have awed us as children and then went on to influence us. Be personable.
Rhian then describes their approach and where they work. The list of accomplishments are not a laundry list and they appear at the bottom making you believe that accomplishments are a by product of inspiration and making art.
I quite like Rhian’s approach.
Larry Poons also follows the more traditional approach to writing an artist biography. It is the typical laundry list of accomplishments and facts but what I do like is the photo. It is not a pretentious professional photo of the artist in a black turtleneck trying to look cool. The photo looks more natural.
Jeff Koons – As he has so many achievements, Jeff’s website also has formatted his bio into sections covering Awards and Honors, Talks and Lectures and Collections.
Another list of accomplishments and an unnaturally posed photo. Please do not go down this path of a boring artist bio, be original and be likeable. Make yourself relatable.
Be original, personable and likeable. Stay true to character and do not appear fake.
What is the purpose of writing an artist bio? Is it for vanity, was it requested by art galleries or was it just so that you could be found in search engines?
Most artists write an artist bio because other artists have written one. Pretty simple.
Personally I don’t have a formal artist bio written and the only time I pull one together is when I am entering an art competition and it is part of the entry form.
When we write our artist biography we need to ask ourselves “Who is it for?” You should write to your audience and not to yourself.
Writing an artist bio is a bit like a resume. It can feel cold, impersonal and detached.
When we write a resume we are writing for a specific audience such as a recruiter but the goal is the same.
Give people your “why” when creating an artist bio
When you write an artist biography I have found it to be actually quite harder than a resume.
When we write a resume we tend to be able to be more objective about our skills, work and achievements but with art, we are emotionally invested and being an artist is core to our self identity.
Self taught artists may believe the lack of a formal qualification or training in the arts may preclude them from needing an artist biography.
I suffered from an inferiority complex for many years as I too am a self taught artist.
Self taught artists can usually do well with an artist profile instead of an artist bio as it can gloss over or skip over any need to highlight their qualifications.
So if you are a self taught artist, write your artist biography listing all your achievements, influences, showings, sales and include an artist statement.
Then when it comes to qualifications, highlight that you have been an artist for X amount of years, highlight your experience over any qualifications.
Now I’ll get on my high horse.. Not being formally trained is not a hindrance. In fact, an art degree or tertiary qualification is actually only a recent thing for artists. Most artists until the 20th century were trained as artist apprentices or self taught. None had a piece of paper proclaiming that they were now part of the creative elite!
As we no longer have artists guilds to confirm our skills as an artist, then some use a degree or diploma as a proxy. Though this does not guarantee that you are as good an artist as any other.
Many contemporary artists have some form of qualification they will include in their artist biography. If you have a certification in a specific field, or use of a specific tool then note that down.
Otherwise your artist biography and artist statement should read like any other.
When you are a beginner artist your experience will be little, you may not have even had a showing yet and you may not have any qualifications.
When I was 17 I entered the Doug Moran National Portrait prize (in Australia) which is a $100,000 Acquisitive portrait prize.
I had about 5 years of artist experience under my belt, 1 showing in my high school where I won first prize for a portrait of Marilyn Monroe and 2 sales of my paintings.
The prizes required I submit an artist bio and artist statement. I did not know what to do so I left it all blank.
Today I would give the same advice as I give to self taught artists, highlight your achievements to date and not add anything negative.
Remember my resume example. When we start working we have nothing to add as experience but we document all the transferable skills we have all that we can offer.
As a beginner artist, add what you have done to date and be proud of that. If you have not done anything of note yet, then note what your influences are and where you want to go with your art career.
Images – Should I include an image of myself?
Just like in a resume, unless you are one extremely good looking person or you have a very original look that can help with your persona or help people remember you (think of Dali’s moustache) then do not include an image or photo of yourself.
Ensure you provide any links to where you have exhibited.
Ensure you provide any links to where you have sold your works. If you are unable to link to article showing a sale, then note down the item sold, when it was sold and the details of the artwork.
You do not need to note the price it sold for or who purchased the artwork.
Where possible, link to any articles about you or your works that are of note.
The best way to write an artist biography is to start looking at the artist biography examples found on the internet.
The hardest thing I found was collating all the information I wanted to include in my bio. What I found was when I just did a brain dump without putting my thought into dates etc it was easier.
The first things you should do, using sticky notes:
Once you have these noted down, you actually have the key points required for an artist biography. All we need to do now is start writing the artist bio.
Grab those sticky notes we just wrote. Put them in this order:
Now that you have put all the raw data into some meaningful order, you just need to pad these out into properly worded paragraphs and ensure that they have a natural flow to them.
If you find that hard to do then take a look at some real artist biography examples to draw inspiration from. Find a few you like and experiment.
Here are some real examples of artist biographies to draw inspiration from. Note: One take away from all the examples I researched (apart from Rita Ackermann) is that they were all badly formatted and hard to read.
So please take some time to ensure that your artist biography is formatted so that it is easy to read on a computer and also on a smartphone.
An Award winning photographer, Evelyn Sosa Rojas was born in 1989 in Havana, Cuba, where she still lives and work.
In her practice, since 2008, Sosa specializes in amazingly soulful portraits.
Sosa shows the power of femininity through photos of women in different familiar or intimate settings.
In 2016, Sosa was the winner of the Herman Puig Prize, awarded yearly to the best artist of the Body Photography Salon in Havana.
In her powerful series “Women’s portraits”, Sosa captures the very essence of each subject in a simple, sensual and compelling way. Sosa has an ability to capture the depth of the eyes and gaze, showing the subject soul and deep thoughts.
In 2019, Uncommon Beauty published a photo-book , HAVANA INTIMATE, through the lens of Evelyn Sosa.
In a scholarly essay written for the book, Grethel Morell Otero, the recipient of the 2019 Cuban National Curator Award, and a published authority in Cuban photography wrote: “her (Sosa) work represents something of a vanguard movement in contemporary artistic photography’. Website
Born in Sydney in 1972, Rolella completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 1994 and went on to obtain a Masters in Visual Arts at the University of Western Sydney in 1998. Joseph Rolella has exhibited consistently for the past twelve years both nationally and internationally. Rolella has won several major art prizes including the Australian Cricket Art Prize in 2011 for the painting “Cricket at Kandahar”. The Oakhill Grammer School Art Prize in 2013 as well as being selected as a semi-finalist for the prestigious Doug Moran Portrait Prize. Complex and contradictory, Rolella’s recent abstract paintings seek to expose a delicate equilibrium between a sense of balance and visual calm and the tumult of painterly texture and surface tension. The play of light at the waters edge…
Begins her studies 1979 at the Hertfordshire College of Art and Design in St Albans, UK. In Portugal she studied etching and painting at Ar.Co. (Art and Visual Communication Center).
Her first group exhibition was in 1982 at the 1ª Mostra de Artes in Lagos, Portugal and her first solo show was in 1990 at Galeria Alda Cortez, Lisbon. Since then, Sofia has exhibited in various countries individually and collectively. She had a retrospective exhibition covering the last 10 years of her career in 2011 at the Galeria da Cordoaria Nacional the exhibition was accompanied by a book published by Babel, with texts of among others: Jorge Silva Melo and Professor Luís Campos e Cunha. In 2012 Areal illustrates the literary magazine published by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Colóquio Letras. In 2013 launches a book together with Harvard Professor, Allan Hobson – “ Creativity”. Since 2013, Areal has started an international exhibition program, in Macau – Orient Foundation 2014, Oslo – Embassy Art Space 2015 and Dublin in 2016. In the same year a film by Jorge Silva Melo, “Sofia Areal: Um Gabinete Anti-Dor” premiers. In 2017 Areal continues a series of exhibitions, started in 2016 in quARTel das Artes in Abrantes, about her own private collection in Lagos Cultural Centre, followed by MUDAS. Contemporary Art Museum of Madeira and Centro Cultural Raiano – a series, which will continue in 2019. In the same year Areal will have an exhibition in the Portuguese Cultural Centre in Luxembourg. In 2017-2018 creates a tiles panel is together with a group of artists and 3 individual ones, all with Ratton Gallery in Lisbon.
A short bio is a good idea for any artist whether you want to present your skills for a solo exhibition for fine art or just for a social media platform such as for an Instagram profile.
Born: Budapest, Hungary, 1968
Education:
The New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture (Hanes Foundation), New York NY, 1992 – 1993
Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary, 1989 – 1992
Resides: Lives and works in New York NY
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Hauser & Wirth, ‘Rita Ackermann. Brother and Sister’, Zürich, Switzerland
2018 La Triennale di Milano, ‘Rita Ackermann. Movements as Monuments’, Milan, Italy
VIEWING ROOM, Marlborough Contemporary, ‘Rita Ackermann and Carol Rama: Body Matters’, New York NY
You can follow this simple template if you want to skip the sticky note exercise from the previous steps.
As I do not like referring to myself in the third person I will move away from your typical artist biography examples and make it a little more personable.
“My name is [Insert your name], I was born in [insert town/city/country] in [year]. My first experiences as an artist was when [insert time period in life or formative experience].
My influences were [insert influences].
It was here that I realized that I wanted to pursue my career in this field.
I went on to study [insert course and institution] where I earned my qualifications in [insert field of study].
It was here that I furthered expanded on my knowledge in [insert fields of interest], where I [insert key achievements].
I work primarily in [insert mediums] and I currently work from [insert location] and [any other locations of interest].“
For self taught artists, your artist bio will be the same as all the examples but without listing any formal qualifications. Using the template above, I have modified it to make it suitable for self taught artists.
The focus for a self taught artist is to focus on your practical experience and what you did in lieu of formal training.
“My name is [Insert your name], I was born in [insert town/city/country] in [year]. My first experiences as an artist was when [insert time period in life or formative experience].
My influences were [insert influences].
It was here that I realized that I wanted to pursue my career in this field.
I believe that being an artist is something that one is born to do an not learned at school, I went on to study through practical experience, learning through trial and error and self learning studying the works of [insert influences] as my teachers.
It was here that I furthered expanded on my knowledge in [insert fields of interest], where I [insert key achievements].
I work primarily in [insert mediums] and I currently work from [insert location] and [any other locations of interest].“
Describe yourself in 50 words or less. This is much harder to do than you may think.
If you must provide an artist biography in 50 words or less then focus on the key information and remove the filler words that we tend to use when describing ourselves and our achievements.
When creating a 50 words or less artist bio, use simple headings and bullet points and stick to the point.
“My name is [Insert your name]. Born in [insert town/city/country] in [year].
I work primarily in [insert main medium]
My influences are [insert influences].
I obtained a [insert qualification] from [institution].
(I am represented by [insert gallery]) or (I have exhibited in [insert shows]) or (I have won [insert main prizes])
I currently work from [insert location] and [any other locations of interest].“
I found this cool site, it generates artist statements and biographies. All you need to do is click “Generate Some Bollocks”.
If you find it hard to write about yourself, find someone you trust and hand over your sticky notes and ask them to write the artist biography for you using the templates as a guide.
You will find that someone who knows you well will remember to add other information about you that you may have forgotten to include or too embarrassed to include.
Once they have a draft, read through it out loud with them and see if it makes sense and look at areas for improvement.
If your english is not as good as you like, that is totally fine. If anything it is an advantage as you can now have a bilingual artist bio.
You can have your artist bio written in your native language for your native audience and then ask someone you trust to translate it to English or pay a small fee on Upwork or Freelancer to translate your artist biography for you.
If you do not want to pay someone, you can give Google Translate a try and see how that comes up. Speaking from experience when I tried to translate text from English to Italian, be careful as this does not always give the best results.
Again, with anything your write you should review it yourself and then ask someone you trust to review it again for you.
Check for grammar and spelling.
Contrary to my advice about writing in the first person, some say that your artist biography should be written in the third person to give the impression that it was written by someone else and that it sounds more authoritative.
Unless your artist biography was actually written by a third person I disagree with this advice. We know you wrote this so why pretend it wasn’t.
Secondly, if you are an unknown and not professionally represented, most people in the industry will know you bring little authority with you. That’s the sad truth.
The next mistake is to fail to tell an interesting story about your journey as an artist. Note down any gaps in your career and explain why, sometimes the gaps are as interesting as the art journey itself.
Taking care of children, sick family, going to war, being in accident can all be used as part of your narrative and drawn on for inspiration.
Think of all the books you read that you could not put down, they told an interesting story you could relate to and the characters were usually likeable and not pretentious.
Which leads to the next mistake, do not big note yourself or embellish your achievements. Do not lie about your achievements. With the internet available to most people on their phones, most facts can be easily verified.
The next mistake is to write an artist statement when an artist biography was requested.
Other mistakes when writing an artist bio are spelling mistakes grammar mistakes, not proofreading your draft, and the final mistake artists make when writing their artist biography is forgetting to tell the why they became an artist.
As I mentioned earlier, writing an artist bio is a bit like a resume but it’s all part of the art business. It can feel cold, impersonal and detached. This is the reason why I prefer an Artist Profile instead.
I would format the artist profile to include the initial hook paragraphs to get your readers interested in knowing more.
I would then follow the lead from the examples provided and include information that you would usually see in an artist biography.
Remember, as artists we are always changing and progressing. This means whether you are using an Artist Biography, Artists Statement or Artist Profile, these should be updated to reflect where you are in life and as an artist at that point in time.
It should change as you change. Keep some of the older information in there so your reader can follow your career and influences progressions.
These tell a story about you and remember there is no such thing as a perfect artist bio or artists cv. You just want to convey enough about yourself for potential clients and for a fellow artist.
Each time you make an update, review what you wrote and do not be afraid to re-write it all if it no longer applies to who you are today.
Get someone to proofread your artist bio and take on any constructive criticism.
Good luck! If you have any of your own artist biographies that you would like linked to this article, please send through a message on the contact-me page.
If it is suitable, I will include it in the list of Artist Biography Examples.
Joseph Colella (Joe Colella) is an Editor and Writer at WastedTalentInc. As a frustrated artist with over 40 years experience making art (who moonlights as a certified Business Analyst with over 20 years of experience in tech).
While Joseph holds a Diploma in Information Technology, in true wasted talent fashion he spent years applying for various Art degrees; from the Accademia di Belle Arti (Napoli), to failing to get into the Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) at the University of Western Sydney.
While he jokes about his failures at gaining formal art qualifications, as a self-taught artist he has had a fruitful career in business, technology and the arts making Art his full time source of income from the age of 18 until 25.
His goal is to attend the Julian Ashton School of Art at The Rocks Sydney when he retires from full time work. Joseph’s art has been sold to private collectors all over the world from the USA, Europe and Australasia.
He is a trusted source for reliable art advice and tutorials to copyright/fair use advice and is committed to helping his readers make informed decisions about making them a better artist.
