Refine Your Artist Statement

Already have an artist statement that could use a refresh? A compelling artist statement is a crucial part of building the narrative around who you are, and what your artistic practice is about.

This workshop will demonstrate a number of ways (both traditional and non-traditional) that artist statements can effectively be used throughout your artistic practice. Participants will also learn about ways that artistic statements can be better tailored to your practice, and how multiple, unique artist statements can be used depending on one’s audience.

Facilitated by writer and curator Geneviève Wallen, participants will also receive one-on-one feedback from Geneviève during the workshop on how they can better refine, refresh, and leverage their artist statements. Spots are limited.

About Geneviève Wallen

Geneviève Wallen is a Tiohtiá:ke Mooniyang/Montreal and Tkaronto/Toronto-based independent curator, writer, and researcher. Wallen’s practice is informed by diasporic narratives, intersectional feminism, intergenerational dialogues, and BIPOC alternative healing platforms functioning outside neo-libral definitions of self and collective care. Her ongoing research focuses on the intersections of longevity and pleasure as contemplative spaces for care work in the arts. 

Wallen contributed essays for C magazine; the anthology Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada, edited by Deanna Bowen; and the anthology The Politics of Spatial Transgressions in the Arts, edited by Gregory Blair & Noa Bronstein. Wallen is the Exhibition Coordinator at FOFA Gallery. She is also part of the collective YTB (Younger than Beyoncé) Gallery; the co-initiator (with Marsya Maharani) of Souped Up, a series of sporadic and thematic dinners for racialized curators and cultural workers; a member of the Black Curators Forum; an advisory committee member for the BLACK PORTRAITURE[S]: Toronto, Absent/ed Presence conference and she recently joined the advisory board of the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora founded by Andrea Fatona.

About Left of Centre

Left of Centre is a two-year artist incubation project which combines professional development, creative consulting, critical feedback, and seed funding to support the careers of emerging Black artists living within Toronto or the GTA. With multiple streams, Left of Centre allows artists to locate themselves within the incubator, making use of elements that are best suited towards their needs – whether that be funding, consulting, critique, or inspiration. Learn more here.

Thank you to our funders