You may already have an artist statement describing your overall practice. However, that practice includes different bodies of work with distinctive concepts, themes, and/or narratives, so you also need to write project statements for your website, any upcoming portfolio reviews, and competition and residency applications.
If you need help, here are some tips from our self-paced class, Essential Writing for Artists.
- ✏️ Consider your project title carefully. A well-chosen title can provide an entry point to your work.
- ✏️ Open your statement with an interesting story. Set a compelling scene, get the reader invested in you and your project and interested in reading on. (I like the introduction in David Benjamin Sherry’s American Monuments.)
- ✏️ Keep your reader in mind. Remember that the reader most likely doesn’t know anything about this work, and include all the important nuts-and-bolts details.
- ✏️ End strong. Your conclusion should cover the relevance and implications of your project. (I like the conclusion in Lissa Rivera’s Beautiful Boy.)
- ✏️ Create multiple versions of your project statement. Write your project statement in the first person when it is to be included in an application. Write your project statement in the third person when it is to be included in press or exhibition materials. Write for your website at your discretion, just be consistent.
- ✏️ Be consistent. Make sure your project statements and your general artist statement correspond with each other. However, avoid reusing portions from your general artist statement in your project statements. It looks lazy.
- ✏️ Get help. Project Statements, a module of Essential Writing for Artists, is now available as a stand-alone class. In this our self-paced writing course, you will learn techniques for crafting a project statement from start to finish.
Want something more? Book a free 15-minute consultation to figure out how we can best work together on Calendly.
