For better or worse, writing is an essential component of being a contemporary artist and becoming an articulate and effective writer can only strengthen your art making practice. Regular reflection and writing about your work will aid in your ability to invite others into conversations about your work, engage art historical and theoretical discourse, and comment on trends in contemporary art.
The main objective in writing an art statement is to provide your reader with information about your ideas, inspiration, and the context by which you want your work to be viewed and experienced. The statement also gives you a valuable opportunity to define for yourself the critical conversation you want to engage through your art.
Be honest with yourself and take stock of what you know about your work, process, and ideas. Consider the following questions:
What am I doing?
How am I doing it?
Why am I doing it?
What influences me most?
How does my art relate to the work of my contemporaries?
What do I want others to understand about my work?
For the first draft of your art statement, please address each of the above questions in a document that is roughly 3-4 paragraphs long, no longer than 1 page if it was printed.
Post your art statement #1 to your blogs by the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 20th.
Installation view of “Secret Sister” a two person show of artists Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Rebecca Morris currently on view at The Pit in Los Angeles.
Secret Sister is the first exhibition to pair the work of two lifelong friends and colleagues who share similar aesthetics, world views, and unwavering commitments to their artistic practices. Jessica Jackson Hutchins’s work in sculpture pairs ceramic vessels with found furniture to create provocative tableaux that challenge received ideas of craft, domesticity, and conventional beauty. Her recent work in glass extends her exploration of materials more readily associated with artisanal fields than the arena of fine art and moves deeper into abstraction, using color and light as well as scale to create assertive yet graceful and uncanny forms. Rebecca Morris’s paintings offer up constellations of gestures that are at once familiar and strange. Her paintings are a deep investement and reflection in the medium’s elemental concerns regarding shape, color, and gesture. Morris’ compositions play with spatial hierarchies – margins, borders, the center in contrast to the edges, and so forth. Contrast itself is a foregrounding concept within her paintings and in this context creates a field for contemplation or reflection when viewed with Hutchins’ sculptures. Secret Sister is a pause amid a long and esteem-filled association between two artists who tell their story in a few anecdotes here and, most importantly, through their work.
Check out the show before it comes down on February 18th!
Gallery info here. Read a review of the show in art forum here.
