How to Write an Artist About Page

What an About page is actually for

Three kinds of reader arrive at an About page, and they behave differently.

Someone who has just seen a painting they liked wants one thing: to know who made it and whether there is more. They will read two sentences and leave, ideally towards the work.

Someone assessing you professionally — a curator, a gallery, an open-call reader, a commissioning contact — is checking for substance and consistency. They want the practice described in the artist's own terms, evidence of exhibition or membership, and a way to make contact without guessing.

Someone considering a purchase is looking for reassurance. They want the sense of a serious, continuing practice rather than a one-off.

A page that serves all three does so by ordering itself, not by saying more. Short and specific at the top, longer and more detailed further down, a route out at the bottom. The opening of an About page may also inform search snippets and automated summaries, which is another reason to make it clear and accurate. If you are building the wider site at the same time, see How to Build an Artist Website for where this page sits among the others.

Why a statement, a biography and an About page are not interchangeable

The three are easily confused because they overlap in content.

An artist statement is written in the first person and explains the work: its concerns, its subject, and the parts of the process that genuinely help someone read it. It belongs to the work.

A biography is written in the third person and explains the practice: how it developed, where you trained, what you have shown, where you are based. It belongs to your professional record.

An About page is a page. It contains a version of both, in a fixed order, with an introduction in front of them and a route out at the end. It is the only one of the three that has to work as a piece of navigation.

Treating the page as a single blended paragraph — a common shortcut — loses the thing that makes it useful, which is hierarchy. Treating it as a document dump loses the reader in the first screen.

The page structure that works

Seven parts, in this order. Not all of them are compulsory.

1. Identity and orientation

This is rarely written as a prose section, and that is why it gets neglected. It is usually supplied by the page header: your name, a short role descriptor, your location, and a photograph.

It still needs deciding. The role descriptor should be the one you would give in person — "painter", "printmaker working in etching and drypoint", "landscape painter based in North Yorkshire" — not a job title assembled for search. Location matters more than artists expect: it anchors regional exhibition context and is often the detail a curator is checking.

Use a current, suitable photograph of yourself where you have one — in the studio or with work in progress is ideal, but any recent, professional image is better than a decade-old portrait, which quietly dates the whole page. A logo is not a substitute for a person. That said, a missing studio photograph does not make an About page incomplete; accuracy and order matter more.

2. About introduction

One short paragraph, roughly 50 to 100 words, written in the third person, immediately below the header.

Its job is to let a reader who reads nothing else leave with an accurate impression. Name what you make, the material or method, the subject or concern, and the place or context. Avoid opening with a claim about how the viewer will feel.

A useful test: if this paragraph were the only text quoted about you elsewhere — in a listing, a search result, an automated summary — would it be correct and specific? If it would apply equally well to two hundred other artists, it needs a concrete noun in it.

This paragraph is not a compressed statement. It is an orientation. Keep it factual and let the statement do the interpretive work.

3. Artist statement

Below the introduction, in the first person, clearly presented as the artist's own voice.

This is where the reader gets your account of the work: what you are attending to, what the recurring concerns are, and only as much process as helps them look. On an About page, 150 to 250 words is usually right — the full statement can live with an exhibition or a body of work if it is longer.

Do not re-teach yourself statement writing inside your page-planning session. Use How to Write an Artist Statement for the writing itself, and the Artist Statement and Biography workbook and worked example to draft it properly. The page-level decision here is only how much of it belongs on this page.

4. Current practice

This section comes before the biography, and the order is deliberate.

A reader who has just met your work wants to know what you are making now, not where you studied. Current practice describes the body of work you are actively developing: the series, what it is concerned with, and the materials and methods that matter to it. One tight paragraph is enough; two if the series genuinely needs it.

Choose one body of work rather than summarising everything. A list of themes, techniques and influences is planning material, not public prose — it reads as tags. Write it as description, or leave the section out until you have something current to describe.

This is also the section that dates fastest, which is covered under maintenance below.

5. Biography and development

Now the third-person professional account: training, how the practice developed, significant shifts in approach, and where you work.

The most common error here is repetition. If the statement has already explained your relationship to a landscape, the biography does not need to explain it again in the third person. The biography's material is chronology and context; the statement's material is the work. Cut anything that appears in both.

Length depends on the reader you are serving. Two hundred to three hundred and fifty words suits most artist websites. Artist CV and Biography covers the conventions and the short-versus-long question in detail.

6. Selected exhibitions and recognition

Selected is the operative word. This is not your CV.

Group the entries under plain headings — exhibitions, awards, memberships, and anything else that genuinely applies — and show only headings that have records under them. Order within each group newest first. A record appears once, in one group.

Include only what is verifiable and public. Nothing pending, nothing private, nothing you are hoping for. If your full record is longer, link to a CV rather than transplanting it into the page.

7. Contact and external routes

End with the way out. A clear contact route, links to the profiles you actually maintain, and — most importantly — a link back into the work.

A reader who finishes an About page convinced by your practice and finds no next step is a reader you have lost at the last line. "View works" or the equivalent should be present near the top of the page as well as at the bottom.

Do not link dormant social accounts. An unused profile from three years ago undermines the impression of a current practice more than an absent link does.

Moving between first and third person

The About page contains both voices, and the switch has to be visible or it reads as an error.

Introduction: third person. Statement: first person. Current practice: whichever voice is natural for the description you have approved for the series — it must be internally consistent within the section, but it does not have to match the statement merely because the two sections sit next to each other. Biography: third person. Recognition and contact: neutral.

Make each switch obvious with a heading, so the reader understands it as a change of register rather than a slip. Never mix voices inside a single paragraph.

Editing the page down

Draft everything, then cut. Three passes work well.

First, remove duplication across sections: any fact, phrase or idea that appears in both the statement and the biography stays in one of them only.

Second, remove unverifiable claims — ratings, unnamed praise, vague achievement language. If you cannot point to the source, it does not belong on the page.

Third, read only the first sentence of each section in order. That sequence should already tell a coherent story. If it does not, the problem is structural, not stylistic.

Then check the page against the standards for the rest of the site — see What Makes a Good Artist Website?.

Common mistakes

• The statement and biography placed consecutively with no introduction in front of them.
• An opening paragraph about what art means rather than about what you make.
• Themes, techniques and influences published as raw lists.
• A complete CV pasted in place of selected recognition.
• No route back to the work.
• A portrait or a "current" series that no longer reflects the practice.
• Rewriting the page for search phrases rather than for the three readers described above.

Keeping the page current

An About page decays quietly. Nothing breaks; it just gradually stops being true.

Review it twice a year, and always after an exhibition, an award, a new membership, or a genuine change of direction in the work. In practice, three things carry the risk: the current practice section, the recognition list and the photograph.

Historical exhibitions and recognition are not the problem — a verified record from years ago still belongs on the page. What decays is anything presented as current: the series you are described as developing, the portrait, the links. Set the review as a recurring task rather than relying on noticing. The page most likely to be read by someone who matters is the one you last thought about eighteen months ago.

A short review checklist

• Header shows name, role descriptor, location and a current, suitable photograph where one is available.
• Introduction is 50–100 words, third person, specific, and accurate in isolation.
• Statement is first person and does not repeat the introduction.
• Current practice describes one active body of work, and sits before the biography.
• Biography is third person and repeats nothing from the statement.
• Recognition is selected, grouped, newest first, public and verifiable — historical entries stay while they remain relevant and accurate.
• A contact route and a link to the work are both present.
• Voice changes are marked by headings.
• The page has been reviewed within the past year, and its current-practice information, portrait, links and professional details remain accurate.

Questions artists ask

How long should an artist About page be? Many effective About pages contain roughly 400–800 words of prose, excluding the recognition list, but clarity and section purpose matter more than reaching a fixed total. A shorter page that is correctly ordered will outperform a longer one that repeats itself.

Should the About page be written in the first or third person? Both, in marked sections. The introduction and biography are third person; the statement is first person; current practice takes whichever voice suits the approved series description.

Do I need an About page if I already have an artist statement? Yes. The statement is one component. The page also has to orient a new reader, give professional context, evidence the practice and provide a route to the work.

What should I do if I have no exhibitions yet? Leave the section out entirely rather than publishing an empty heading or padding it with unverified entries. Give the space to current practice instead.

How often should I update it? Review it twice a year as a baseline, plus after any exhibition, award, membership or clear change in the work. Historical records can stay; it is the "current" material that needs checking.