Your artist bio, sent straight from heaven
By request, some notes on writing or re-writing your artist bio to start the New Year right.
Hello, happy weekend, Studio for Tomorrow readers –
Thanks to each of you who reached out last week to say that Mercury Retrograde was also wreaking havoc with your lives. I hope that the Lunar New Year is arriving with fresh energy and abundance in your routines, your relationships, and your creative practice.
Our exhibitions opened up beautifully last week, everything seeming to fall seamlessly into place. Hundreds of folks showed up for the opening, and the solo exhibition we opened at the Rubin Center project space—Laura Turón: Immersive Abstractions—hit a couple of regional lists for the best show to see right now. Afterward, a few of my colleagues, artists, and members of our student team went out together to celebrate, and I had that feeling of deep connection with community: something that has been challenging to find since before March of 2020. I am grateful to be here.
By request, I’m writing today with some thoughts on how to write and revise an artist bio. Please send me your requests – it’s so helpful to know what might be helpful to offer here. I’m always open to your thoughts and questions.
ARTIST BIOS, A TOP TEN LIST OF IDEAS & EXAMPLES:
Artist Bios are short statements found (and requested) in so many different kinds of spaces: websites, social media profiles, grant applications, press releases, gallery wall texts, etc. I have some general advice—applicable to any kind of repeated text genre that you need to write—and some specific thoughts about them. And, in the spirit of the new year, I’m going to organize these suggestions in a list. So, here we go: 10 tips for (re)writing your artist bio.
1. Keep a single word document in one place where you save every version of your bio, all together. Save it with the easy-to-find name: MY ARTIST BIO, and write the newest version at the top of the document, so they naturally fall into a chronological order and you can scavenge details from earlier versions.
2. Write in the third person. Unlike artist statements which use first person (I am an artist), the bio should sound like it was written by an all-knowing deity (Laura is an artist). This is the best voice to use to be a little braggy about how brilliant you are, and how your work is widely recognized and celebrated. (In contrast, the first person of the statement gives you space to take ownership of your ideas and innovations, digging into the creative content of your ideas).
3. I like to start with a summary sentence. This sentence includes a major idea that underpins much of your recent work or working experience; what exactly you make (I also recommend this in the first sentence of your artist statement); and some of the major themes or working methods that hold your practice together. My friend Tammy uses this as her first sentence: Tammy Pittman lives in Brooklyn, New York where she makes things, writes, walks and talks. My friend Michael starts his bio like this: In his paintings of birds and other animals, Michael Golden challenges the definition of the “naturalist artist” by embracing the artificial in subject and style, the implausible in composition and background, and the spiritual in content.
Here is my first sentence in the current version of my bio: With a history of working between the U.S. and Central America, Laura August, PhD, makes texts and exhibitions informed by (mis)translation, making relation, personal and political sanación, and close listening to the natural world; her work is structured by the forms and disruptions of conversation with artists and writers.
In earlier versions or in other contexts, I have used much simpler first sentences, such as: Laura August, PhD, is a US-born writer who has sustained close working relationships with contemporary artists in Guatemala since 2014. OR: Laura August, PhD, is a writer and independent curator. (Yours could be as short as: Nina is a painter.) Short and simple is very confident, and that is also a good thing.
What you’ll find that many of these share is: The person’s name, my creative occupation, geographic associations (US/Central America, New York), and in some of them, conceptual preoccupations or artistic collaborators. You’ll also notice that they’re all wildly different… this is the benefit of keeping them all in a single word doc for easy searching.
It also leads to my next point, which is:
4. Write a new version of your bio for every opportunity, application, presentation, and publication. Just do it. You’ll learn more about your work, and you’ll push against the ways language can get stale if it just sits there for too long.
5. Then, in order of how impactful they have been to your career, start listing some of your proudest moments. My second sentence is:
Her writing about contemporary art in Guatemala City has been awarded The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and her essays, reviews, and interviews have been published in international magazines, exhibition catalogs, edited volumes, and monographs.
I have another version that is even braggier, just a list of awards. But this one is the one I keep returning to, mostly because the Warhol grant was the grant that first allowed me to call myself a writer. It was foundational to all of my subsequent work, allowed me to leave my day job and move to Guatemala City, and has opened up so many other doors. So, it often earns the coveted second sentence spot. Whenever I read it, I get that warm fuzzy feeling of having someone say: You are a writer.
Whatever the thing is that allowed you to proudly proclaim yourself to be an artist, that can go here. Maybe it’s an MFA you completed, or a similar training program. Maybe it’s a big award or being collected by certain collections. Maybe it’s a collaborator that has been significant to how you understand your work. Or maybe it’s an idea that all of your paintings are working through. This second sentence should be an accomplishment (or idea) that underpins your practice in a major way. This is a great place to list major exhibitions, particularly if they are recent. You can use the phrasing: “Her work has been featured in the solo exhibition Immersive Abstractions in 2023 at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts” or “Her work was included in the 2022 Whitney Biennial.” Or: “Her work helps us rethink the ways in which abstraction functions in the borderlands.”
6. Because my practice is divided into two parts—writing and curating—the next chunk of my bio digs into the second part of my creative work. If you are an artist who also publishes or works in another creative genre, or teaches, you may have a section here that centers that work. In mine, I point out a competitive curatorial/critical studies fellowship I completed (the Core Program), and then I list a series of my most important curatorial projects in the past couple of years. Of course, someone could find these on my CV, but placing them in this third slot of my bio allows me to decide which ones have been the most impactful—either in terms of their reception, or in terms of helping me figure out a big idea. It gives me editorial control. Laura Turón also runs a school bus that she has converted into a traveling interactive museum, so that would be a good thing to include in this section. Jessica Kairé has co-founded a museum of contemporary art in an egg-vending kiosk; Erica Reed Lee has started a self-organized traveling residency in a camper that she and her husband designed; I used to have a domestic project space named Yvonne in my home… all of these are good for this second area of your bio. You can make it list-y, like this:
August was a Core Critical Studies Fellow at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX (2016-2018) where she curated the exhibitions Una piedra y la lluvia (2017), Tell it to the Horses (2018), and In Case of Natural Disaster (2018). Her 2019-2020 exhibitions include citysinging (Lawndale, Houston, TX), To look at the sea is to become what one is (Radiator Arts, NYC), Stone’s Throw: Arte de sanación, arte de resistencia (The Anderson, Richmond, VA), and To Weave Blue: Poema al tejido, the first exhibition in the U.S. to center contemporary art and conceptual practice by Maya artists (University of Memphis, TN).
Or you can make it a place to feature a previous project, like my colleague Oscar does: In 2004, he cofounded the Latin American Community Art Project (LA CAPacidad), where for seven years he directed artist residencies to promote intercultural awareness through community art education.
If you are drafting a bio for a website, then you might also consider including hyperlinks to the various projects you are mentioning, so your bio can lead readers to find the specific projects in other spots on your site, or on other websites entirely.
7. If you have another major or recent award you want to mention, you can put it now here, in a short and punchy sentence. Something like this: In 2021, she was a Mellon Arts + Practitioner Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Have I mentioned that a bio is not the place to be modest? You are a rock star, and your third person omniscient narrator voice is here to proclaim that truth to the world.
8. Next, is there another kind of gig-economy-style work that you want to include in your bio? Something that is relevant to your creative practice or demonstrates your expertise, but that maybe doesn’t fit easily in the earlier sections? This might be work you do as a teacher, consultant, gallerist. For me it is: With painter Francesca Fuchs, she teaches a process, practice, and professional strategies class for artists in the Block program at the Glassell School of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She also works as an advisor and developmental editor for American Art Journal’s Toward Equity in Publishing program. This can be a couple of short, punchy sentences, almost like you are narrating your CV; this is also a great place to put your work as an educator, arts administrator, community organizer, etc. Maybe you serve as a consultant for a project that is deeply aligned with your values, but isn’t obviously part of your studio practice. Here’s the spot to include it, if you want to.
9. Similarly, your daily occupation might be important to mention, and that can be a good thing to include near the end of your bio, almost like a punctuation to your earlier sentences about your creative production. In 2022, August became the inaugural Curator at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso.
10. Finally, what is a big ongoing project, or upcoming project, that you’d like to flag? I sometimes use this last sentence to make my aspirations visible and call them into being. My last sentence has included book projects that I want to be working on (no matter if I’ve written one sentence or 75,000 words), or long-term projects (like this newsletter). I particularly like the combination of an aspirational single project, alongside a big body of ongoing work. Something like this: She is at work on a book of essays about contemporary visual art in Guatemala City since the democratic uprisings of 2015, and her weekly letter to visual artists can be found at Studio for Tomorrow.
What you’ll notice about these suggestions is that they are all YOU-generated. You are not citing what other people say about your work, who taught you, or what the critics write. Instead, you are centering the big ideas and big accomplishments in your work, and letting them speak on your behalf.
Working in this list, you can cut any of these sections which might feel unnecessary at the moment, and still have a very complete bio. Indeed, even the sentence: “Laura August makes essays and exhibitions” is a full bio. Some days, my bio might read: “Laura August gets out of bed most days and considers the world.” Those are some big (albeit vague) accomplishments (plus, doesn’t it sound bold and arty to consider the world?) Maybe the bio you are drafting should only be two sentences, or maybe it should be two paragraphs: in either case, choose what feels most relevant for the opportunity, and shine bright, you sweet star. You are an artist: you can do this any way that you want to.
I can hear some of you saying/feeling that you don’t have BIG names and awards to include here: That’s a million percent not a problem. What is BIG is relative, and a fancy name doesn’t necessarily indicate good work. Just think about what has been most important for you, in your practice. When I went freelance, many years ago, I still had to attend some conferences that I had applied for before becoming an independent writer and curator. Everyone else had a fancy institution behind their name—MOCA, LACMA, University of WhoKnowsWhere—each signaling a certain kind of success (and institutional resources). I didn’t have an institution, so I included the name Francine, an artistic collaboration that I had with a friend, as my institution. “I’m Laura, from Francine, in Houston.” People nodded in recognition and affirmation, even though they had never heard of Francine before because she was literally a figment of mine and my friend’s imaginations. There is a lot of imagining that happens to make success: the first person who has to imagine your contributions are meaningful (whether or not they have a fancy title or institution behind them) is you.
This post is getting unwieldy, so I’ll stop here. But one last bit of advice: read other people’s bios. Read them on websites, on wall texts, on press releases. Look at their structure, their style, their voice, their specific details. Use the ones you like as a template for your own. Use the ones you don’t like as a list of things not to say. Be brave. Be bold. Be confident. Step fully into the most celebratory voice you can imagine your best friend using to describe the work you do. Your work matters. Your artist bio is a great place to let that god-like voice piping down from heaven tell us all about it.
—LA
A note about subscriptions:
If you have been with me for a while, you know that I paused all paid subscriptions three months ago, giving myself time to re-think how I wanted the subscription model to work. In part because I am a bit of a Luddite and Substack makes it nearly impossible to turn off paid subscriptions, you may have seen a charge come through this month. If that was a surprise, or caused you undue financial stress, reach out & I’ll refund you, happily. Here’s my plan moving forward:
I want anything I write here to be available to anyone who wants it or needs it, regardless of their ability to pay for it.
Starting this month, all subscribers—both paid plans and free plans—will receive the same content.
If you no longer want to or are able to pay for your subscription, take a moment to switch to the free plan right now. No hard feelings – I want you to take care of you, and I am grateful for all of your support. You’ll still receive everything posted to Studio for Tomorrow.
If you have wanted to contribute financially to this work, but couldn’t afford the paid plans as they are listed, you can send a few bucks to me via Venmo whenever you are able, and skip the whole subscription package. I’m @Laura-August. Or on Paypal, you can find me via ella@lauraagosto.com.
If you have the resources and want to keep your paid package, bless you. If you want to buy a subscription for someone else, you can do that, too.
I welcome your support—financially, but also through your kind notes, and your time. It means so much to me that you read these missives on creative practice and lived experience. I hope they land when you need them.
Yours,
Laura
And here’s another version! Laura August, PhD makes essays and exhibitions. She has curated more than 20 exhibitions as an independent curator working between the U.S. and Central America. In 2021, she was named an inaugural Mellon Arts + Practitioner Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, and her writing about contemporary art in Guatemala City has been recognized with an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Alongside her consulting practice for artists and writers, she teaches a process, practice, and professional strategies class for artists at the Glassell School of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She currently makes her home on the edge of the Chihuahua Desert, and she is the first full-time Curator at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso.