Statement

When I was a student we didn't have to write artist statements. I don't even remember them existing. We did have to put a few words into our profiles for the degree show catalogue, but that could be anything. I used the quote from Heart of Darkness at the foot of this page.

These days it seems the artist statement is essential if you are to be taken seriously as 'an artist'. Although I doubt 'real artists'* bother with them.

Should you ever need to write an artist statement Google found me two useful resources this one, and this one. I'd use the latter myself...

Not having to bother about such trivia I struggle on in my battle to avoid making pretty landscape pictures. Sometimes the clichés are too much to resist.

Sometimes they're not.

* This book has become a firm favourite since I acquired it recently. Photographs of rubbish, cows and dog turds will not be to everyone's taste, some may refer to 'Emperor's New Clothes' but it's the approach and attitude I find inspiring as much as the pictures.


Equally inspiring, in a different way, is Dark Days, a document of the foot and mouth outbreaks in Cumbria in 2001.

---