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Galleries and other art dealers have recognised the benefits of the artist’s involvement in the marketing of their art work

Stephen Garan’anga Visual Art

Numerous Zimbabwean artists have performed remarkably at home and internationally with regard to their creativity and innovation.

A lot of their work have been hung or erected in various places of importance for permanency in various part of world and the trend continues.

Unfortunately, with the modern ways of marketing, many have been found wanting when asked to present an ‘‘Artist Statement’’ for a show or give an art talk. Truly an artist statement is complex taking into account truckloads of critical elements an artist has to wade through to make a satisfactory representation of him or herself whilst elsewhere.

But it is imperative that artists make their respective statements as they are modern day essential tools of marketing aimed at increasing pedigree and revenue for the creative practitioners as well as the various art dealers and collectors who revolve around them.

An artist statement is a concise summation of the ideas you’ve based a body of work on, and/or a concise explanation of your creative process and the formal concerns that fuelled either a given body of work or your work as a whole.

An artist statement is not an explanation of individual pieces, a manifesto of your philosophy on art, or an essay about how you feel about being an artist.

Gallerists and other art dealers have recognised more and more the benefits of the artist’s involvement in the marketing of their art work. The marketing process has become a collaborative process between gallery dealers and their artists.

The artist statement not only represents one in his or her absence to provide an access point for viewers into your creative process, but it also helps you, the artist, develop a structure around which you base the elaboration of content for a talk you may give during your show.

Generally, an artist statement is one sentence to no more than a couple paragraphs in length but it’s extremely complicated to put together.

How do you cull all of the complex ideas, experiences, emotional and creative processes you’ve gone through to create your work into a brief explanation that offers insight for the viewer without telling them your life story, or denying them the experience of having their own discovery and responses to your work?

The point of the artist statement is to help guide the viewer to way or ways of seeing one’s work; to help show them things, not just tell them things. This requires an artist to really think about the essence of his or her work or creative process.

The first artist statement is not the only statement you will ever write, many artists write a new statement for every body of work they produce. Your statement belongs to you and it is as unique as your artwork — be creative, have fun, be serious, but be very present and real with it!

Depending on the situation that prompted your need to write, you may have to consider some elements like your audience, your purpose or motive, the materials and medium in which you work, the subject of your work, the theories and methodologies that influence your work and your own personal perspective or background.

It is usually impossible to break this information down into separate categories, as it is all somewhat interrelated. Most artists’ statements are written in the present tense, but the voices vary significantly. Some are playful, some are extremely intellectual, and some play with the visual form that words take on the page.

It is very important to consider that an artist’s statement must reflect what it is one wants to emphasise. To get started on tackling your statement, you may have to put down a number questions and strategies to assist you not to forget crucial information. The order in which you present this information (and how much you include) will depend on the purpose, occasion, audience, etc.

The questions should also prove to be useful if you are to write a proposal for a show, a grant application, or a letter of intent (all critical elements of a career in the arts).

Some of the critical questions you may want to consider are as follows; Who are you? What is your background? What medium do you prefer to work in? What did you initially set out to explore, investigate and discover? How did this perspective change as your work took shape? Are you a student, a practicing artist, or both? What is your educational background? Is this your first show, or one of many? What are your interests? How did your ideas develop? Are you a collector, an observer, a traveller, an adventurer? Are you curious about other cultures? Are you interested in exploring gender issues, theories, memories, questions of identity, the relationships between form and function, etc ? How does your background influence your work? What is it you like to explore?

The materials and medium and how you make your work: As long as it isn’t too obvious, your audience will almost always want to know why you chose to work in film, sculpture, paint, wood, mixed media, etc.

They’ll want to know how the materials reflect your purpose, the occasion, your process, and your theoretical interests (how form relates to content).

You might want to mention how you handle the camera, the clay, the brush, the wood, how the materials create or set a certain mood, and how they reflect a certain culture, history, attitude. Your audience might be interested in the tools you used, whether you made them yourself, and how you applied or challenged certain techniques.

Most importantly, they will want to know how your technique, process, materials, contribute to the overall theme, meaning or subject of the work — in other words, what your work is about. Your choice of materials will usually be integrally related the space in which it is presented, and you might consider discussing this relationship as well.

Historical, critical, theoretical framework: What kind of research did you conduct while engaged in this work? Were you influenced by certain ideologies or theories of gender, identity or culture? What did you read? Did the work of other artists, visits to galleries, or travel to other countries contribute to your ideas, your process, the finished work? What are the historical precedents for your work? How does it fit in a history of art? Does your work make a statement about the future, does it challenge the theories of others, and/or does it provide a new way of looking at an “old” idea? However you go about introducing this information into your artist statement, it is often necessary to use framing when you place your work within a larger context.

Some final tips to an excellent statement are as follows; be brief, write two or three paragraphs of nots more than three sentences each is a good length for an introductory statement.

Tell why you create your art and what it means to you. Appeal to the emotions. Convey feeling about your art. Avoid complex explanations, obscure references, and artspeak. Try not to categorise your work or compare yourself to others. And ultimately use language that everyone can understand.