Artist CV: Template for Residency, Exhibitions and More (+ 7 Writing Tips)

Your art is rare, unique. It can’t be everywhere at the same time. Therefore, sometimes you must send somebody an application to see if they wouldn’t have it. If you require an artist CV for this purpose, you’re in the right place. 

This guide is for artist CVs for positions such as residences or gallery jobs, and for art resumes for juried exhibitions, contests, and things of the like. Without paying it appropriate attention, you can end up missing out big time on awards, contests, grants and positions.

Do it properly from start to finish and follow our step-by-step guide to crafting your own.

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Artist CV template

That’s a quick sketch of an artist CV. Here, want the pencil?

1. Write an artist CV personal statement at the top of your CV

If your artist CV is your calling card, then the CV personal statement is your slogan. What you include should differ depending on whether this is part of an art resume for an exhibition, or part of a job application for a museum position. 

Both command different focuses. Remember, this is a CV summary. Tie up the most relevant points that argue for why you should be granted your requested outcome. There will be adequate to show your depth as an artist just below.

Answer the following questions simply:

1. Who are you, what’s your experience?
2. What are you requesting / applying for?
3. What’s your most impressive / unique achievement?
4. What’s your most relevant argument?
5. What are you hoping to be able to achieve here?

Most people find it significantly easier to write their personal statement at the very end. 

Personal statement for an artist CV

A strong CV summary will convince the recruiter you’re the perfect candidate. Save time and choose a ready-made personal statement written by career experts and adjust it to your needs in the LiveCareer CV builder.

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2. Prioritise the most relevant section of your artist CV 

In our artist CV template, Ellis is attempting to get his work exhibited in a local exhibition. Therefore, it seems natural that we would prioritise the ‘Exhibitions’ section, listing some exhibitions similar in status and subject. Then it seems natural to follow with ‘Commissions’, to show that there is interest.

If you are applying for a museum or teaching job, you may do very well to prioritise the education or work experience sections. If you have any prestigious awards, you could prioritise them. In some cases, just being part of one of nine of the UK’s art societies could be enough to tip the scale.

List the year, title, organiser and location of the exhibition. List the purchaser and medium of your Commissions.

Artist CV relevant section examples

3. List your education in your artist CV

For formal employment and teaching positions, you must display your education credentials. If such is the nature of your application, move the education section all the way up to the bottom of the personal statement. 

Those who want to teach, must show they can. By listing their appropriate QTS. In reverse-chronological order, list your qualifications.

List your PGCE, QTS or other teaching certifications in the following way:

[Year] — [Qualification Name], School Name

Record your degree in the following way: 

[Year] — BA[Degree Name], University Name

If you are applying for a teaching job after all, you could consider adding 3-5 bullet points discussing coursework or important aspects of your education that are relevant to the application.

Artist CV education section template

4. List work experience on your artist CV

If this is a teaching job application, your work experience should move up below your personal statement, and 3 to 7 bullet points should adorn each professional assignment and discuss your achievements and progress you made in those roles.

If your work experience is of low relevance to what you’re applying for, save space and mention it briefly like so:

Artist CV template work experience

5. Splash additional sections onto your artist CV

Whether you’re applying for a residency or an exhibition, you can include other valuable sections on your artist CV could:

• Residencies — the year and name of residency, the type of research carried out
• Publications — papers, books, articles, with standard referencing rules
• Lectures
• Awards and Grants
• Gallery Education / Projects / Affiliations
• Radio / TV appearances
• References
• Professional Membership
• Certifications
• Foreign Languages
• Skills: software you can use, soft skills such as critical thinking or conceptual skills, story board and key visual creation

And the order of those is up to you and should be adjusted accordingly. Even if you could not be needing this CV for a few years, it might be time to start thinking about adding to it. The Royal Society of British Artists opens an annual call for entries to apply to join its ranks.

Artist CV template additional sections

6. Write an artist cover letter

While your portfolio will speak for itself, as you can see the artist CV has ended up as a laundry list of honours. For this reason, writing a solid cover letter could help explain your reasoning behind your application.

The optimal cover letter structure has following parts:

• 1st paragraph (60-80 words)—Your relevant experience, and the reason why you are a unique candidate for this exhibition / residency. 

• 2nd (main) paragraph (120-200 words)—Your key 2 or 3 achievements that prove you are the real deal.

• 3rd paragraph (40-60 words)—State your motivation in applying for this opening.

• Call to action (single sentence)—Confidently ask for a chat.

Make sure you craft a targeted CV for every application that you make. That may seem obvious for exhibitions, but it should be obvious when applying for any kind of formal job.

7. What else to remember about when writing an artist CV?

I’m not about to tell an artist how to structure and design their calling card. That’s up you. All I can relay is the traditional advice for a general CV format that may be a good starting point.

Here’s what we do:

• Use legible CV fonts like Didot, Garamond, Noto. 
• For a neat CV layout, apply even, at least 1-inch margins on all sides.
• Use simple headings for each CV section, and space the sections out.
• Unless specified otherwise, save your artist CV in a PDF format.
• Make sure your creative CV template is ATS-scannable.

Make a note of the applications you send out and call in a couple of weeks to follow up. That could just be the spark they need.

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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Did we answer all your questions on how to write an artist CV? Got any job hunting tips and tricks you’d like to share? Did you find our artist CV template useful? Use the comments section below. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.