"Tell me about yourself."

Go on.

Feeling stuck on where to start?

It’s a daunting question. Whether it’s being asked at a job interview or when you’re meeting someone new, most people will share their long-winded life story, or offer very little insight at all.

The same thing happens with artist bios.

They’re one of the most miswritten tools in the artist’s kit of skills. Writing yours right is key for career success.

So, how do you write one?

Artist bio vs. artist statement

In our previous blog post, we taught you how to write artist statements. An artist statement should be an engaging explanation of your work, highlighting your motivations, inspiration and methods.

When it comes to the artist bio, blunders happen when creative practitioners try to use abridged versions of their artist statements: “Jackson Pollock is a painter inspired by…” or “Lulwah Al Homoud uses…”

A helpful way to counter the confusion between the two is to treat your artist bio like an excerpt of your CV. Your artist bio should be a concise summary of your practice and accomplishments. It is a professional piece of text that should be written in the third person.

Use your artist bio to introduce your discipline, themes, techniques and notable career highlights. It can also include other conventional information like your birth year and location—especially if these details help to contextualise your work.

Keep it succinct

Audience engagement researchers at the Australian Museum found that visitors experience fatigue after 150 words.

Since your artist bio is usually the first introduction between you and your audience, it offers you the chance to frame your practice and tease tidbits of information that invite them to learn more. You can achieve this by limiting your artist bio to around 120 words.

A tight word count means you’ll need to be selective. Therefore, keep exhibition highlights, accomplishments and accolades to a minimum. Although these are certainly worthy of celebration, they occupy precious real estate in your artist bio—and are better suited for other formats like full-length CVs or media releases. Instead, you should focus on an insightful discussion of your practice in your artist bio.

Another effective way to keep your artist bio short is to use clean, simple language. Avoid conceptual artspeak and jargon that requires clarification. Art is for everyone, not an elite class, so it’s essential that your artist bio can be understood universally.

Your art isn’t boring, so your artist bio shouldn’t be either

Get creative with a captivating first sentence. The standard biographical introduction has become utterly banal.

Capture your audience’s attention with a unique opening line that also tells them the most important information about yourself and your work.

Let’s look at an example:

Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967) is a Danish-Icelandic installation artist. Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic parents. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995. After school, he opened Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for artistic creation and spatial research. Adding materials such as fog, water, light, and reflective surfaces to open spaces, Eliasson’s projects and installations make for immersive and unexpected experiences that highlight the ephemeral qualities of our surroundings. The artist currently lives and works in Berlin, where he was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, but now, his studio now employs more than 40 people as artists, architects, scientists, and technicians. However, his endeavours extend beyond the art world as he launched his Little Sun project in 2012, after working with an engineer to develop solar-powered lights for areas of the world with minimal access to electricity. Eliasson has received many awards throughout his career, his most recent accolade being the 2014 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT in Cambridge, MA. His work is represented in public and private collections worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Tate in London. [215 words]

The bland opening sentence really doesn’t do Olafur Eliasson’s fascinating career any justice. The remaining sentences are far too long and contain irrelevant information. Why is his year of birth mentioned twice? Why do we need to know his parents’ ethnicity? He worked as a professor, but in what field? Did this opportunity contribute to his art practice in any way?

Olafur Eliasson, 'The Weather Project' (2003), monofrequency lights, projection foil, haze machines, mirror foil, aluminium and scaffolding,  26.7 m x 22.3 m x 155.4 m, installation in Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. Image: BBC.

Now, let’s read another artist bio:

American artist Alexander Calder changed the course of modern art. He developed an innovative method of sculpting, bending, and twisting wire to create three-dimensional “drawings in space.” Resonating with the early twentieth century Futurist and Constructivist artists, as well as the language of early non-representational painting, Calder’s works consist of abstract shapes made of industrial materials––often poetic and gracefully formed and at times boldly coloured––that hang in an uncanny, perfect balance. His complex assemblage Cirque Calder (1926–31), which allowed for the artist’s manipulation of its various characters presented before an audience, predated Performance Art by some 40 years. Later in his career, Calder devoted himself to making outdoor monumental sculptures in bolted sheet steel. These continue to grace public plazas in cities throughout the world. [121 words]

Alexander Calder, Big Red (1959), painted sheet metal and steel wire, 74 in x 114 in, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Photo: Whitney.

Can you get a taste for the creative flavour of this artist?

This is an outstanding bio which neatly summarises their practice, mediums, methods, achievements and legacy all in a piece of text way less than the maximum characters of an Instagram caption. This artist bio cleverly entices the senses, invoking tactility through "bending, sculpting and twisting wire", while the description of the "gracefully formed … boldly coloured" works hanging "in an uncanny, perfect balance" inspires the imagination. Lastly, the varying lengths of the sentences create a dynamic and fun artist bio that is exciting to read.

As always, remember George Orwell’s six rules for writing

For these apply to writing artist bios as well.

Your artist bio will always evolve with your career. It’s something you will continuously rewrite and revise, so it’s alright if you feel you haven’t nailed it just yet. Keep practising!