SAI has always held that the only way a viewer of art can fully appreciate the appreciate the work of art is to have some sense of the artist's background, motivation, methods, and message.  That belief was in part the motivation for SAI's video project through which over one hundred  artists tell their own stories via video recordings. 

Not every artist will have the opportunity to tell his or her story in a published video. However, there is a way that any artist can inform the viewers about their artistic approaches, and by doing so provide the viewer meaningful insights into the artists' creations. The artist statement is the tool do so.

Our experience at SAI is that many artists do not have an artist statement. We asked some of them why.  The answer can be summed up this way: I do not really understand haw to create an artist statement.

Accordingly SAI searched for information about artist statements that was easily understandable and provided easy to follow guidance for doing so.  That information was developed by ArtDex, an online source of information of interest to the entire fine art community.  The link leads to the instructional document that will help anyone who wants to have a good understanding of the Artist Statement.