Useful Articles · For artists

An Artist’s Website: What to Write About Yourself and Your Work

Tatiana Knyazhitskaya · 2026

Imagine that Leonardo da Vinci has decided to build his own website. What should he place on the home page: The Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, a drawing of a flying machine, an anatomical sheet or a bridge design? Whom will the visitor see — a painter, an engineer or a scientist?

The choice is hard. But showing everything in one heap is no answer either. When a visitor is faced with a multitude of works and projects, they cannot work out what their creator actually does, or what he is offering the world.

For that, different texts are needed.

A brief introduction on the home page

The home page answers the first questions: who you are, what you create and how your work differs from everyone else’s.

There is no need here for a full life story or a detailed account of your artistic method. A few precise sentences are enough to set the direction for the whole site.

Leonardo, for instance, might have written:

“I am an artist and a researcher. In painting, drawing and engineering projects I study the workings of nature, the movement of the human body, of water and of air. Observation becomes for me the foundation of both the artistic image and the technical invention.”

This text does not tell the viewer everything about Leonardo, but it gives them a key to his works.

The home page should also carry a few strong works, links to the main sections and contact details. There is no need to display the entire archive at once.

Biography: how the creative path unfolded

The biography tells the artist’s story in time: where they studied, whom they worked with, which events shaped their development, how their themes and artistic language changed.

It is not a list of dates — that is what the CV is for. A good biography binds facts into a story.

Leonardo would do well to begin his biography with his training in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, continue with his work at the Milanese court, and show how his painterly, engineering and scientific interests gradually merged into a single system within his life.

Not every fact of a life deserves a place on the website. What matters is to select whatever helps the reader understand how the artist came to be.

A text on the work and the artistic method

This section is devoted not to the events of a life but to the art. It answers the questions: what does the artist investigate, why do they turn to particular themes, how do they choose their materials and how do they construct a work.

For Leonardo, such a text might read like this:

“I do not separate art from knowledge. To paint a face, I study the movement of muscles; to render the folds of cloth, the action of air and the pull of gravity; to depict water, the character of its flow. Painting allows me to explore light and human expression; drawing, to record observations; and the technical drawing and the model, to turn a thought into a construction.”

A text about your work should not be made of generalities about beauty, inspiration and finding oneself. Its value lies in being concrete. The reader wants to understand how the artist sees the world and how that vision takes shape in the works.

Descriptions of series and projects

An individual series or project often needs a text of its own. It explains how the idea arose, what unites the works and how the project developed.

Leonardo’s website might have included sections such as:

• “Portraits” — on human character, facial expression and gesture.
• “The Movement of Water” — on drawings of currents, waves and whirlpools.
• “Flight” — on the study of birds and designs for flying machines.

Each section would open up a subject of its own, while remaining part of a single artistic world.

A project description should not retell what is already visible in the images. Its task is to reveal the inner logic of the series, the choice of material and the development of the idea.

Captions for the works

A caption seems a technical trifle, but without it a work loses its professional context. Moreover, information from the website may find its way into the press, a catalogue or an announcement without further consultation with the artist. A website is the author’s public document about themselves.

A caption usually gives the title, year of creation, medium, technique and dimensions. Where relevant, add the name of the series, details of the commission, current location or exhibition history.

All captions should follow a single format. If one work lists the medium, another only the dimensions, and a third has no year at all, the site looks careless — even when the works are strong.

The CV on the website

The CV lets the reader see the professional facts at a glance: education, exhibitions, residencies, awards, publications and collections.

The full version can go on the website, with an abridged one prepared for applications. The CV should not duplicate the biography: the biography tells a story, the CV records events.

Texts for the press and exhibition organisers

A journalist, curator or project organiser often needs ready-made materials: a short biography, a description of the work, a photograph of the artist, images of the works and contact details.

These can be gathered in a “Press” section. It is especially useful for an artist who takes part in exhibitions, gives interviews or appears in catalogues.

The more carefully these materials are prepared, the smaller the chance that the artist’s name, the title of a work or a biographical fact will be passed on with an error.

Which texts you actually need

Not every website requires all the sections listed here. For a young artist, a home page, a portfolio, a short “About” text and contact details may be enough. An artist with a long career will need a biography, a CV, descriptions of series, a list of publications and press materials.

What matters is not the number of texts but their coherence. They should not repeat one another or project different images of the author.

A good website reveals the artist gradually. The home page makes the introduction. The biography tells of the path. The text on the work discloses the artistic method. The series descriptions illuminate individual projects. The CV presents the professional record.

I can help you prepare a complete set of texts for your website, give them a unified style and distribute the material across the sections so that the visitor sees both the artist and the inner logic of their work. Write to me.