How to Write an Artist Bio

An artist bio is not an artist statement and it is not a CV. It is the paragraph that lives at the top of your portfolio, on the gallery wall, on your residency application's cover page, and on the press one-sheet next to the catalog. It tells a stranger who you are, what you make, and what makes your work distinct — in 150 words.

What an artist bio is not

• It is not the same as an artist statement. The statement is about the work; the bio is about the artist.
• It is not your CV. The CV lists every show, fellowship, and publication. The bio names two or three.
• It is not a press release. Save the launch language for the launch.

The structure

1. One sentence: identity and medium. "Sarah Mendel is a painter working in oil and gouache."
2. One or two sentences: subject and approach. What the work returns to and how it goes about it.
3. One or two sentences: credibility. Two or three named venues — galleries, museums, residencies, publications.
4. One sentence: education or background, if relevant.
5. One sentence: where you live or what you're currently making.

The result is five to seven sentences, 130–180 words.

A worked example

A fictional artist bio for someone working at the intersection of painting and architectural archives:

Sarah Mendel is a painter working in oil and gouache on linen. Her work returns repeatedly to abandoned 20th-century interiors — empty schools, closed department stores, vacant churches — and the way light continues to occupy rooms long after the people who built them have left. Her work has been shown at the Hauser Gallery in New York, the Calumet Project in Chicago, and is held in the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox. She was a 2024 MacDowell Fellow and holds an MFA from the Yale School of Art. She lives in the Hudson Valley, where she is at work on a series of paintings about the closed schoolhouses of upstate New York.

That's 122 words. It tells a curator everything they need to know to take the work seriously.

Subject and approach

The hardest sentence in an artist bio is the one that describes what the work is about. The temptation is to write something like "explores themes of memory, place, and the human condition." This is invisible to a reader.

A useful rule: name the subject concretely, then name the approach.

• ❌ "Explores themes of memory and place."
• ✅ "Returns repeatedly to abandoned 20th-century interiors and the way light continues to occupy rooms long after the people who built them have left."

The second version is harder to write but does the work. It tells the reader the specific subject (abandoned 20th-century interiors), names the angle (light, time, absence), and gives a hint at what the paintings themselves might look like.

Credibility — name two or three, not ten

A bio with two named galleries reads as confident. A bio with seven named galleries reads as anxious. Pick the two or three that mean the most to your strongest audience and leave the rest for your CV.

Same with residencies and fellowships: name the two best-known. The Bushwick Open Studios listing can live on the CV.

Education

Include education if:

• You have an MFA from a school strangers recognize.
• Your undergraduate institution is unusually relevant (a conservatory, a specialized program).
• You studied with someone specific whose name carries weight.

Otherwise leave it for the CV.

Tone — quiet works

Galleries, residencies, and grant committees read hundreds of artist bios. The ones that stand out are quiet. Cut anything that sounds like marketing copy:

• "Internationally renowned"
• "Award-winning"
• "Critically acclaimed"
• "Sought-after"
• "Pushes the boundaries of"
• "Reimagines"

Replace each with a specific fact — a named venue, a specific award, a specific subject — or remove it.

Update frequency

Refresh your artist bio:

• Before any new show, exhibition, or residency application.
• When a new venue, residency, or publication should join the credibility line.
• When your current project changes.
• At minimum once a year.

Use the generator

Biography.co's Artist Bio Generator writes in this quiet, literary register. It uses your medium, subject, named venues, residencies, education, and current project; it does not invent shows, awards, or critical reception.