RESOURCES | HOW TO
WE GO THROUGH HOW TO WRITE YOUR SIXTEEN ONLINE ARTIST BIO
Writing an artist bio or statement is about finding the best way to introduce yourself and your work to your audience, and it is essential for establishing your identity as an artist. Keep it concise and compelling with insight into your work that gives digital explorers a way to connect to you and your practice.
When it comes to your Sixteen Online Portfolio, your bio should be an amalgamation of bio and statement, a brief introduction to you as an artist that serves as a window into your creative world, providing context, and communicating your unique perspectives allowing your audience a deeper understanding of your work.
A well-written bio affects how your work is perceived and understood. It works as a tool to convey your artistic voice and encourages viewers to spend time with your portfolio, exploring your work in more depth. The best artist bios are a balance between pertinent information and a concise and compelling introduction to you as an artist. Below we take a look at the main components of a successful artist bio; one which introduces your practice, highlights experience and gives readers a sense of your unique ideas and perspectives.
CLEAR CONCISE CONNECTION
An artist Bio is not a scholarly essay, nor does it need to include an entire biography or resume. Your Bio should concisely reflect your artistic practice through a few main points which you feel best give insight into your work. You should aim to do this between 80 and 140 words, just enough to to entice the audience to connect with your practice, but not so much as to overwhelm them. There is no need to throw around big overly-academic words or exaggerated language here. Keep your writing clean, simple and authentic to you, your audience will be better able to find real connection when they hear your voice and understand your ideas.
A GOOD OPENING LINE
Ideally you’d like buyers, visitors or fans to be interested in you and by extension your work. So think about how you start and try to engage them; you want to hook them in to read on. It’s up to you how you do this, reflect your personality. Try and be creative and think about starting with the most important thing about you as an artist or your work. Be positive and show you care and are passionate and people will invest their time in reading on and finding out about you.
TRAINING AND HISTORY
In our opinion, you don’t need to spend too long on this. While it’s absolutely great to shout about the school you went to or to proudly state you’re self taught, do it concisely. It’s nice to hear an artist's credentials, but it doesn’t tell me much about who they actually are, or what they make so keep it brief or skip it if it’s not something essential to you. The same goes for highlighting any achievements you may have. If it is important to understanding you as an artist and your creative journey, then make sure to mention it. Some social credibility can go a long way, but don't add every detail on your CV over more interesting insights about your actual work.
MEDIUM AND STYLE
A visitor to your Sixteen Online portfolio wants to know an overview or summary of how you make your work. They want some information about the materials and tools you use and how you create the pieces they see to pique their interest in you.
If you’ve tried every medium under the sun(amazing!), think about limiting your description to what you’re working with right now so that it is relevant to what the viewer is looking at. Tweaking parts of your bio with each collection can be a great way to make sure buyers get pertinent information rather than trying to give your whole artistic journey through mediums which are no longer relevant to your practice. As nice as it is to know, this is just a bio not your memoir.
Don't forget your bio also works as a guide to visitors to help them find work they might be interested in. Key words like your medium are used in the search function when visitors are browsing the full list of artists portfolios; being specific can help you connect with your audience as they explore.
THEMES OR SUBJECT MATTER
The best way for a buyer to connect with your work is through an insightful summary of the subject matter or what genre you create in. Having a broad idea of what the artist's work is about, be that landscape photography or psychological concepts in oil pastel, helps provoke interest and form connection with the viewer.
Again, think about updating this often to keep the information relevant to what you're working on right now. You want to take the reader on an interesting journey but without them getting lost in the weeds. If you’re work has always explored the same themes then by all means detail a brief history. But if you’re someone who experiments and explores different ideas with different collections, then dive into what viewers will be looking at now and describe your current subject matters.
INTENTION BEHIND YOUR WORK
Equally as, if not more important than "the what", is "the why". Along with describing what themes or subjects you’re exploring, tell your audience a little about why you do it, and what's your intention or inspiration for your practice.
This can be a simple sentence explaining you find inspiration in the natural beauty of your specific location; or your work focuses on the political narrative around women's bodies; or it manifests your expression of grief. Whatever the intention or inspiration for your creations, allow the viewer to understand from your perspective what your work speaks to and why you have created. This will encourage meaningful and authentic responses between artist and audience.
These points are by no means the only things you should mention in your bio, just as you may not feel that all of them are right for you. But working within the suggested word count, we think that if you curate your Sixteen Online Bio with just a couple of sentences on each of these suggested points, you will have an engaging and authentic introduction to yourself and your work. As always, get creative, your bio should be a professional reflection your personality as well as your practice.
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