Three documents every artist and gallery needs, from a few plain-English answers. Describe your medium, themes and process to draft an artist statement; give the facts of your career for a third-person artist bio in short, medium and long lengths; and list your exhibitions and awards to format a clean artist CV. Everything is editable: copy, print or download it. Built for artists by Nakada Design.
What your work is about: a few nouns or a short phrase.
The concrete stuff: what you use and how you make the work.
The idea underneath the surface: say it plainly, in a sentence or two.
Your artist statement
This is a first draft to react to, not a finished statement. The best version is the one you rewrite in your own voice. Blanks appear in [brackets] until you fill them.
Write it as it should read: “an MFA from…” or “a BFA in painting from…”
Your artist bio: three lengths
Third-person bios for your website, a gallery page, a grant application or a press release. Use the short version for captions and social, the long one for catalogues.
Sections: one entry per line, most recent first
Your artist CV
Reverse-chronological, facts only. An artist CV leaves off unrelated jobs. Lead each line with the year so it aligns; leave a section blank to hide it.
How to Write an Artist Statement
The best artist statements answer three questions and stop: what you make, how you make it, and why it matters to you. Everything else is decoration. Name your medium and your subject in the first sentence. A curator scanning fifty submissions decides in that line whether to keep reading.
Be concrete before you are abstract. “I build reliquaries from salvaged copper and my grandmother's letters” earns the right to a sentence about memory and loss; the sentence about memory and loss on its own does not. Ground the ideas in the actual materials on your studio table.
Write it in your own voice. Read it aloud. If a phrase would embarrass you to say to a collector standing in front of the work, cut it. The generator above gives you a clean, correct draft to argue with. The finished statement is the one you rewrite until it sounds like you.
Statement, Bio and CV: What Each One Is For
The artist statement is first person and about ideas. It travels with the work: on the wall, in the catalogue, on your About page. The artist bio is third person and about facts: where you are based, your training, your best exhibitions. Galleries, juries and journalists want it because it is quotable. The CV is the evidence: the full reverse-chronological record of shows, awards and collections that lets a curator gauge your trajectory at a glance.
Most opportunities ask for all three at once. Keeping them consistent (same spelling of venue names, same career facts) is quietly one of the most professional things an artist can do. Build them together here so they match.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you write an artist statement?
Answer what you make, how, and why, in the first person, in 100 to 250 words. Open with your medium and themes, describe your materials and process concretely, then explain the idea. Cut the jargon and read it aloud.
What's the difference between a statement and a bio?
A statement is first-person and about ideas; a bio is third-person and about facts: location, training, notable exhibitions, awards. You usually need both, plus a CV.
How long should an artist statement be?
One to three short paragraphs, roughly 100–250 words, for most uses. Keep a one-line version for captions and a longer one for catalogues.
What goes on an artist CV?
Name and contact, education, solo exhibitions, selected group exhibitions, awards and grants, collections, residencies and selected press: reverse-chronological, facts only.
Is it free?
Yes. Free, no signup, and it runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded.
Have clients discover you before your competitors do
This tool is built by Nakada Design, a Los Angeles marketing agency that specializes in galleries and artists. The same care that went into it goes into your visibility: the search presence and advertising that brings collectors to your gallery first. Tell us about your gallery below.
In the garden of time, we'll soon meet Your aspiration, like a seed, has taken root Our response, like a bloom, shall shortly greet.
A fleeting error has crossed our path, please, try once more
Correspondence
Discover the marketing and client acquisition strategies behind top art galleries and artists. Monthly emails, unsubscribe anytime.
Thank you, we look forward to sharing our insights with you.
