What is an artist statement and how to communicate effectively what your art is all about?

Whether you need it for your website or an application, your artist statement should grab the reader’s attention and make them want to know more about your work. However, this can be tricky to achieve and it’s important to foresee possible flaws beforehand.

This workshop will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and techniques you could use to be able to write in a clear and effective way. Whom should the statement be addressed to? What style can you use? How do you make sure that the vocabulary, structure, and tone are on point?

Curator and writer Claudia Contu will share her view on artist statements, together with tips, examples and writing methods supporting you in creating and editing your statement. Thanks to a number of do's and don'ts, after the workshop you will be able to refine your writing skills and look at your ideas with a sharper eye, knowing what you should include and how.

Learnings from this workshop can help you improve applications for grants, residencies, portfolio, press releases, marketing materials and more.

Optional: Please send a draft of your artist statement by 28th May 2021 to get professional feedback from Claudia to maria@nncontemporaryart.org with the headline 'CPD Artist Statement'.

Claudia Contu (she/her) is a curator and writer based between London and Prato and is co-founder of SLANT Projects - an interdisciplinary digital studio programme. 

Claudia's efforts predominantly focus on emerging art and for the past year she has collaborated with The Artist and the Others (Rotterdam) as a portfolio reviewer, while also leading workshops for young creatives to support them in their professional development. She regularly writes for Super Effective and Kabul Magazine. 

Over the past five years, she has curated projects for a number of profit and non-profit spaces, including Gasworks (London), Open Space (London), East Contemporary (Milan), Nir Altman (Munich), The Flat - Massimo Carasi (Milan), and more.

Access Notes

In light of the current COVID-19 restrictions, the event will happen on Zoom – a link will be emailed to attendees. This event will be live captioned and transcription will be available afterwards. The event will be recorded for archival purposes. For help with how to set up Zoom and accessibility enquiries, email maria@northamptonarts.org.