The Art of Bullshitting: Artist's Statement

[beatroot]

Welcome back to the second part of The Art of Bullshitting series and in this part we will be tackling the artist’s statement. Your artist’s statement is essentially an insight to your body of work; a further explanation into your beautiful work. HOWEVER, just because you have a statement does not mean you should solely rely on it to express your BOW’s meaning. Your BOW should express the meaning on its own. Markers do not check your major’s meaning at all! So without further ado, here’s a quick guide on how to structure your artist’s statement.

Depending on your school, statements are usually laid out like this

(Name of work)
(Your name/student number)
(Statement)

The statement itself can be structured this way:

1. Introduction (could be a rhetorical question or some witty statement)
What is your work about?

2. Purpose of your work (visual voice, raise awareness, reflection of society, etc)
What exactly do you want this work to serve as?

3. Themes explored

4. Symbols included

5. Artist/s of influence
What element/s of their work influenced your own body of work? Or how did their practice influence you?

6. What you did in your work
Other stuff you want to mention if you haven’t already

7. What you hope to gain out of this work and what do you want your audience to gain as well.
Besides a Band 6 of course ... this is basically an expansion of the ‘purpose of your work’ dot point.

This was my artist’s statement for example:

beatroot's artist's statement from 2017

Language is crucial to the understanding and connection with one’s culture. So what happens, when the ability to speak one’s own language is lost? This painting serves as a visual voice for second generation Filipinos, like myself, who struggle to connect with their Filipino culture.

There is a conflict faced by Filipino immigrants between preserving their culture and assimilating into their new environment.

My painting explores themes related to displacement and a search for identity by second generation Filipinos who struggle to connect with their heritage because they grow up in a Western country with little exposure to the language of Tagalog. The Jeepneys, unique to the Philippines, symbolically represent the Filipinos who have emigrated into that Western world.

Referencing the use of text used by the artist  Imants Tillers, I have included English words which are representative of the feelings and thoughts produced from the disconnection with my culture. The text used in the Filipino words are clearly broken, symbolising a lack of understanding and confusion. This work hopes to spread awareness of this growing issue that Filipinos face in today’s Western society.

In regards to word count, it really all depends on your teachers and your school. My teachers gave us a 100-200 word count limit because your statement shouldn’t really take up an entire page. Because like mentioned previously, you shouldn’t solely rely on your statement to convey your message.

Good luck everyone