HOW TO WRITE A PROJECT DESCRIPTION/ARTIST STATEMENT
How to write a project description/artist statement
It is important that working artists and designers are able to clearly articulate their ideas in a concise manner regardless of industry or institution. As such, writing one’s ideas down is not only an important part of that process. While each individual will have a different style and approach to writing about their work, the intended result is to inform others about your conceptual process. Remember, you need to write a 3 to 4 sentence description/statement before major completed projects are due for critique.
The process of writing a project description/artist statement is always a work in progress, and sometimes statements change over time as the artist/designer reflects on what they have done. You do not necessarily have to know exactly what it means to make that particular object or project, nor does the maker always fully understand why they were compelled to create that particular work. What you are trying to accomplish is to give the reader (and yourself) a sense of the form, function, and inspiration for the work. Leave it open for others to decide for themselves what the work means (to a degree).
General guidelines to follow:
1. “I” statements are the best way to express your intentions and inspirations. This does not mean you need to start sentences with “I”, or ever use that term, but keep it about your concept and working process. Don’t try to instruct your viewer, let them experience the work for themselves. For example, don’t say something like “You will feel angst while looking at my painting”.
2. Avoid easy comparisons to common words or other artists. “My work is like Picasso’s” or “it looks like a river” constitute a laziness with vocabulary and gives the reader very little to work with. If indeed rivers are the inspiration, get specific about its qualities rather than the amorphous general idea of “river”.
3. Don’t state the obvious/what the viewer already gets about the work. If your work is a charcoal drawing, we can already see that and it doesn’t need to be in the statement. This being said, it may be good to describe the experience of rendering your concept in charcoal.
4. Get feedback and edit. You don’t have to slave over what you say about your work, but sometimes other points of view can be helpful when you are trying to place things into context. Also, take a break from the initial statement and come back later to re-read what you have written. Having time to reflect is very
helpful.
5. Keep it simple! You can pack a lot into 3 or 4 sentences while still being articulate and informative. Talk about the form, function, inspiration and creative process to start. Remember, this takes practice! From practice and repetition comes refinement.
Examples of Artist Statements
“These stones are not mere containers, the partnership between tree and stone will be stronger for the tree having grown from the stone, rather than being stuck in it. I chose these granite stones because they have had a long and, at times, violent past. My working of the stones is a continuation of the journey these stones have made so far. They have a history of movement, struggle and change -- appropriate associations, I hope, for a Holocaust memorial garden."
-Andy Goldsworthy, Holocaust Memorial project (stones with tress growing out of the recesses)
“’The Sun’ was constructed by passing ocean waves (recorded at Rye Beach, New Hampshire), through various digital processing devices. The most articulate of these processors was a tone generator able to isolate and respond to specific frequencies present in the ocean waves. The concept behind The Sun was to make a static music or a kind of music that just shimmered in place.“
-Andrew Deutsch, The Sun (award winning sonic art)
When does a log decomposing in the woods become humus on the forest floor? Asking this question leads to the realization that what we casually perceive as discrete states of being in ourselves, others and the world around us, can more accurately be described as complex patterns of becoming, embedded in a field of interpenetrating actions. Things are interdependent. The log is becoming humus; the humus is becoming something else.
-Maria Artemis, Heavy Levity (sculpture of decomposing log)
The way I've been working over the years has to do with space that was once inhabited by, for instance, water. It has to do with marks that are left and memories that are left from those marks. When objects actually contain liquid in the real world, it becomes another issue because realizing the piece involves casting a liquid into a form to create a solid object. Whether it ends up being an enormous architectural piece or an intimate piece that looks quite ritualistic, the process from liquid to solid is always one of my primary concerns.
-Rachel Whiteread, Water (plaster mould of water in a tub)
Untitled Stream uses a layering and repeating process with imagery of bare-branched trees lying in a shallow stream. This 7th iteration of that process results in 16,384 layers of video. Moments that originally lasted for a second are drawn out and altered, blending with the events preceding and following, creating sensuous new landscapes that are constantly moving and transforming.
-Debora Bernagozzi, Untitled Stream (video)
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