BIO GUIDELINES

The basics

  • Write in the 3rd person.

  • Recommended length: 800-1,000 characters (~120 words).

  • Use concise and accessible language for those less familiar with art. Avoid hyperbole (such as “greatest,” “renowned,” “highly recognizable”) or subjective interpretations of their work (such as “beautiful,” “striking,” etc).

  • Summarize what is most important and interesting about the artist or designer’s work, being sure to describe their preferred mediums and themes.

  • Avoid information suited to an artist’s CV, such as lists of past exhibitions, education, honors or awards, etc.

How to write your Bio:

Here are the three cornerstones of the perfect artist bio:

  1. Open with a first line that encapsulates, as far as possible, what is most significant about the artist and his/her work, rather than opening with biographical tidbits, such as where the artist went to school, grew up, etc. For example: John Chamberlain is best known for his twisting sculptures made from scrap metal and banged up, discarded automobile parts and other industrial detritus.

  2. Summarize the artist’s practice—including medium(s), themes, techniques, and influences.

  3. The profile should be between 80 and 140 words. The ideal bio is ~120 words, though a tightly written 80-word bio is preferable to a longer bio that includes repetition and filler sentences.

Physical
What medium/media does the artist work in?
What is his or her style like?
What significant work or series can you talk about that will give a visual description of the above qualities?

Subject matter
What are common or characteristic themes depicted in the artist’s work? What subjects drive the works or provide underlying themes?

Art-Historical
For historic or deceased artists, consider:
Why is this artist important?
What impact did this artist make on history, or what precedent did this artist set in art-making? What other artists impacted the artist’s practice?
How did this artist redefine a medium or media?
Who were the artist’s peers or teachers?

Context
In what political or technological climate was/is the artist working in, i.e. what historical or political events might have influenced the work?

Popular Culture
What areas of the arts or popular culture did this artist incorporate into his or her work?
What other areas of the arts or popular culture did/does this artist engage with, e.g. creating theatrical sets, costumes, music videos, etc.?

Quotes
Can any of these above questions be answered in a brief (1-2 sentences) and engaging quotation from the artist?

 

Finally, a few of examples:

Barbara Takenaga paints her kaleidoscopic, geometric compositions of dots and lines completely freehand in a practice both meticulous and meditative; many of her compositions begin with a single circle from which the rest then emanate in radially symmetric variations. For this reason, her works have distinct, and sometimes singular, focal points. The act of repetition is central not only to the creation of a single work, but to Takenaga’s practice in general. Her series “Langwidere” (2009), for example, comprised her 30 attempts to recreate a single composition. Most of Takenaga’s paintings are made on panel or linen with acrylic, and sometimes metallic, reflective paints.  (104 words / 682 characters)

Jeri Eisenberg is a mixed-media photographer of landscapes. “I feel no need to seek out grand vistas or exotic locales, majestic mountain ranges or rushing rivers,” she says. “It’s the common wooded landscape of my day-to-day life that captures my attention.” Eisenberg began her most famous series, “A Sojourn in Seasons: Sketching with Light Among Trees” when her father, then 83, began to lose his memory and sight. “Sojourn” is comprised of five chapters, one for each of four seasons, and the last in black and white. To take the photographs, Eisenberg used radically defocused lenses, or cameras with overly large pinholes. After printing the images on Japanese Kozo paper, Eisenberg adds a layer of encaustic while stretching the paper over a hot metal plate, such that the wax infuses with the paper’s fibers and further blurs the image. (139 words / 845 characters)

Allison Stewart didn’t always plan on being an artist—before pursuing a graduate degree in painting, she studied biology. “I’m one of those people who loved dissecting plants and animals, and making my own slides,” she says. “It was a creative thing, and most of all I loved the visual part.” Fittingly, Stewart’s artistic practice—that includes painting, printmaking, and mixed media—fuses the natural and biological with the abstract and symbolic, training her eye on fragile environments and the interconnectedness of all living things. Though beautiful in their layers of light, color, form and texture, Stewart’s works grapple with the troubled relationship between man and nature. “The bigger picture for me is beauty and loss,” she says. “For me, it’s about the visual, what you see. And the visceral. If I don’t feel it that way, the art hasn’t spoken."  (141 words / 860 characters)