How do you write a statement and bio? Do you need a bio or statement? What’s the difference between a statement and a bio?

Your work won’t always speak for itself, so statements and bios can really help you connect with your audience and help people understand what you do.

As an artist with dyslexia, I find expressing myself with words really hard. I like to paint. However, having things like statements and bios can really help you as an artist to connect to your audience.

In this blog, I am going to share some top tips with you to help you know where to start when it comes to writing about yourself and your work. 

What is the difference? 

A bio is a short biography about yourself, not necessarily about your artwork per se. It is about your journey as an artist and how you got into it. It has a personal feel to it. 

A statement is about your art. It’s about the process and why the artwork exists. It helps to think about it as an extension of your artwork to help your audience understand and connect with it. 

A bio helps a buyer connect to you as an artist and a statement gives understanding to your artwork. It allows your audience to build rapport, trust and connect emotionally with your work. 

Tips for writing a bio

There is no one way to write a bio and a lot of people struggle with this as you are writing about yourself and quite often this doesn’t come easily. Here are some things I have learnt over the years to help me write my bios. 

Split them down to short, medium and long. This isn’t necessary but I find having these at this stage with my art really helpful. 

Short bio:

  • Start with the short bio. This is usually written in the third person. 
  • It is concisely telling people who you are and what you do. 
  • It just needs to be a paragraph or a few sentences long. 
  • It may get used on a gallery wall, in a magazine, if you’re featured on a podcast as your intro. 

Medium bio:

  • This extends a little more from the short bio. You would maybe share bits about your process, your journey and how you became an artist. 
  • Think about where you began and where you are now. 
  • The medium length bio is nice to go on the about page of your website.
  • You don’t need this if you are just starting out. Focus on the smaller one first. Write this as you need it. 

Long bio:

  • This can be as long as a few pages and goes into great detail. 
  • Here you’d share your journey from the beginning to where you are now. 
  • Some people will feature this on their website if they have a ‘read more’ option on their about section. 

If you are represented by a gallery they will want a bio from you. It will be down to their discretion as to whether they’d want a short, medium or long one. 

Statements 

I explain how to write a statement and share some more tips in this video here: 

So, grab a pen and paper, make some notes and get writing!

Michelle x.