VA 89 Portfolio Development and Assessment

Suffolk County Community College

Professor: Matthew Gehring 
gehrinm@sunysuffolk.edu
Office: Rm. 108 Southampton Bldg.

Office Hours:
M/W 11:30AM-4:30PM
T/R 11:30AM-12:30PM
For immediate assistance contact Maria Cherubino: 631-451-4093 or cherubm@sunysuffolk.edu

Artist Statement Guidelines

Artist Statements have many purposes and for each purpose you will generally be looking to communicate different kinds of things to different kinds of people in different situations. These can range from statements written in very lengthy and specific terms to shorter, maybe more poetic versions. Our focus for this course is to develop a statement that is useful as a part of the process of transferring to a four year BFA program. All programs will have different types of work they hope to see in the student portfolio. Some will have specific requirements spelled out. Such is not usually the case for the artist statement. For the purpose of transferring it may also come under another name. Whether this written document is called a statement of purpose, statement of intent, artist statement or simply an essay, the person or persons reading them are all going to be looking for this document to answer very similar sets of questions. Based on my experience as an artist, professor, and as a portfolio reviewer and evaluator, the big questions are listed below:

1. Why is art imortant to the culture?  What do you think?

2. Who do you like to look at or read?  Why?

3. What kind of artmaking do you hope to pursue?  Why?

Answer these questions in essay form, and you have a rough draft.  This is where we begin.

The answers to these simple questions will give a portfolio reviewer a wealth of information about you. Some of that information is in the specific ways in which you address the subject. And much information is communicated by whether you address these issues at all.