How To write an Artist statement and Artist Biography with samples.

How do you want your website visitors to perceive you without a catchy and detailed description of yourself? Customers are looking for credibility and Competence. You wouldn't want to loose out on a deal because you didn't have any information about yourself on your website.  

Artist Biography tells your potential customers who you are while 'Artist Statement' tells them what you do and how you started.

A sample is given below. 

BIOGRAPHY

Odunowe Meshack Ejiro was born in Lagos. He was raised in Delta and Niger States. He is currently based in Lagos. He graduated from Ambrose Alli University with a B.SC.ED in Physical and Health Education.

He started attempting to draw at the age of five. He grew up with an uncontrollable passion for drawing. He has always been enthusiastic about drawing realistic portraits on paper. He would make sketches and make attempts to paint them into becoming real.

With his great skill in hyper-realism, one may think that Meshack studied Fine Art as a course in the university but the opposite is the case.

As passionate as he was in becoming an artist, he worked hard amidst his demanding academic setup. What this shows is that, anyone can be an artist irrespective of age, location and discipline.

Using variety of pencils alongside his skill, Meshack creates a deep emotional connection with his drawings. He creates large scale portrait drawings using pencil on paper. These drawings are carefully and professionally handled with the customer’s satisfaction serving as his motivation.

Meshack creates art work for people in Nigeria and other parts of the world. He is too good to be limited to Nigeria. He has his own unique style of portrait drawing and this makes his customers happy and rates him highly. Meshack creates artwork that induces an emotional response and attachment to his customers/clients. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my desire to make a mark as an artist, I have always drawn inspiration from a quote by Picasso, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”. While growing up, I completely fell in love with drawing faces. For me, every face tells a story that could only be interpreted by pencils and papers irrespective of age, race and gender. I decided to be among the few who would make this interpretation possible. The work of drawing is quite difficult and I decided to find an easy way out of it. This didn’t take hard work and consistency out of the equation, it only made them priorities for me.

I take my time to study every picture given to me to represent on paper and the first thing I do is to visually dissect the picture, create a mental view and then decide on the best tool to use. This is usually one of the most important processes in my art work. After this, I pay attention to the details, precision and realism. 

I am goal oriented and until my art work looks more beautiful than the original picture, I may not be satisfied. Many artists pay more attention to the face since it is more visible but for me, every part of the picture is important. 

I always plead with my clients to send quality reference photographs but sometimes, I receive pictures with very poor quality. This is where your skills will be tested and as an artist that I am, I try to do better than what the customer provided. 

I have successfully built a happy and satisfied customer base but this took time and consistency. The first set of customers I had did not get enough satisfaction from my art work and this made me want to get better. I never felt like giving up because I knew I was going to get better. I built my skills, watched some videos, learnt from artists who already mastered the art of giving value to a pencil and I spent more hours practicing and doing some free jobs.

Under this period as a beginner, I drew celebrities like Don Jazzy, Reekado Banks, Tiwa Savage, Di’ja, Korede Bello and many others. The appreciation was encouraging and this boosted my confidence and I was on my way to being among the best as an artist.

My art works are mostly human figures. My customers are always happy. I see the joy on their faces when they receive the portrait and this means a whole lot to me. Many young persons are inspired by my art work and they desire to learn and be like me. This is what I love doing also; teaching people what I know as well as putting big smiles on peoples’ faces.

Lastly, I am not in any competition with any artist. I am simply contributing to the development of art in Nigeria. If you envy my work of art, then you should envy my hard work and consistency as well. Art is not for lazy people.

Found this useful? 

Subscribe for more contents

wisdomirondi@gmail.com