What’s up my quarantined people!

I hope you all are doing fine and keeping yourselves busy. As well as healthy and safe in these times of social isolation.

As you might imagine, the art world is being strongly affected by the Corona crisis, it’s an eco-system that relies heavily on real-life interaction and person-to-person networking. With those two things completely off the table, we need to start looking into new ways to network and introduce ourselves and our art practice to new people.

With that in mind, I bring you the fantastic “VIDEO ARTIST STATEMENT”

For millennia artists have used only words and images to describe their work. Those tools have served artists well. But we need to adjust to the new times!

Writing about your art is great, and still very important! But an image is worth a thousand words, right? So then a video is worth a thousand images! Quick math then shows us that one video is worth ONE MILLION WORDS! Whoa, that’s amazing!

That’s almost as much as Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, taken as the world’s largest novel, counted at 1,267,069

Beyond its obvious mathematical value, video allows you to really connect with your audience, since you will be there, on camera, talking personally about yourself and your art. Let’s be honest, nobody can talk better about your art than you!

It’s vital to be able to share the ideas that surround your art practice clearly. As a professional artist, a lot of your work will involve thinking about your art so it’s only natural for you to share it with your audience.

It should be enough to go through the artist’s statement and have an overall idea of the art, even if you haven’t known anything about the artist before that.

The natural way to start your video artist statement is by writing down your artist statement and using that as an initial script for your video version, but attention! Your video artist statement is much more than just reading your existing statement on video, it’s about establishing an emotional connection with your new and existing audience.

The statement should also cover the artist’s inspirations and an overall view of previous work, and the most important events of your career, to give a good sense of your story as an artist. The key point here is telling your journey as an artist. Being an artist is an adventure, and you should share the steps you took along the way.

When dealing with your art statement try to keep your text clean and use approachable language and try to avoid too much, ‘artsy talk’ or over-flourishing with ‘fancy speech’ make it straight to the point, as you would do in a normal conversation.

The structure of the artist’s statement would go a little bit like this.

• Introduction
• About your story
• About your art
• Hopes for the future

Introduction.

Begin with a short introduction, basically explaining who you are, what you do, and where you do it. Finish off with a quick explanation of your work.

I’m Stephan van Kuyk a Brazilian pop artist, based in Berlin. My art deals with current affairs and mass consumption, drawing my inspiration from celebrities, social media, bubble gum, shallowness, and the color pink.

About your story.

In the second part, you should talk a little bit about your story. It’s important to share a bit about yourself and what influences your art, creating an emotional connection with the viewer, who that way will be more likely to remember you.

I was born 31 years ago in Switzerland. From there I moved to New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina, before finally coming to Berlin. Being raised in such a tropical environment had an important influence on my work, and sometimes I feel like an unofficial ambassador of tropical aesthetics.

About your art.

The third paragraph should be all about your art career. List your most important exhibitions, residencies, studies, and prizes. Remember that this is your artist’s statement, not your cv. So focus on your highlights.

I’ve been doing this ‘professional artist’ stuff for almost 10 years by now, having the opportunity to exhibit and sell my artworks all across the globe, something makes me feel truly blessed. I’ve had works exhibited in places such as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, and Brussels. As well as artworks purchased by collectors worldwide, a lot of times selling artworks online to places I haven’t even had the chance to visit personally! 

In parallel to exhibitions and sales, I’ve also had the chance to participate in art events and projects on a regular basis, doing projects that go from art installations on the bathrooms of an abandoned bank, murals for street aft festivals, decorating 5-star hotel rooms and doing artworks for world-renowned brands.

Hopes for the future.

After bragging about all the cool stuff you’ve been doing, it’s time to close the statement with the golden key. It’s time to finish on a high note, talking a little bit about your hopes and dreams for the future of your art career. Finish with a happy ending.

I have high hopes for the future of my career. It’s truly a humbling experience to be doing what I love for a living. I’m always looking to innovate, be it with new materials and techniques or by establishing new strategies and partnerships.  My art practice is in constant development and I’m having a lot of fun in the meantime. For the next years, he hopes to be able to take part in more collaborations, art fairs and to travel while exhibiting my art.

The overall tone of your statement should mimic the style and feel of your art. In the above example, this statement mimics the playful personality and over-the-top feeling he likes to transmit as an artist.

As your career moves forward so will your statement, so it’s worth revisiting it every six months and making any needed adjustments.

Remember, your artist statement is supposed to be an introduction to your art practice. It’s an important tool that artists will need during their whole career; a good artist statement could mean the difference between getting accepted for an opportunity or not.

So now it’s your turn! Sit down and prepare your own video artists statement, I would love to see them! Be sure to share the final results with our community for some feedback! Artists together: Strong!

That’s it from me today, my lovely artsy people,

Remember to stay safe, healthy and wash those hands.