Rely on You
By Darren Bailey LRPS
 

 

As an artist it is very difficult to get your potential audience to see your works even with today's ways of promoting yourself we nearly all have the internet at our fingertips and thus a potential of getting our works to millions even billions of people , if only it was that simple.
For every one of us it must start with our own self belief we must believe in what we are doing and the message that we are attempting to convey to our audience 
I would like to be able to say that its easy to get to all these people and for them to see your work and admire and purchase it but sadly this could not be further from the truth even with the internet at our fingertips and a world of potential simply a keyboard stroke away it is still a constant struggle.
The very first place that many make their biggest mistake is looking for others to help and in some cases for a very very small minority they may be just this lucky but this is not something that you can rely on the most important person you can rely on to help you find your audience is you.
You must always stand by your works and you must always believe in what they represent and stay true to your own personal brand and style, many in the past have changed what they do based on reaction and rejection but as soon as you fall into this trap your work is longer you it has become what you think people want.
As artists we tend to feel that our work should be enough and few like to put pen to paper but actually this is a very important part of the process there are three very important pieces that should be written in order to connect to your potential audience one of which is your artists statement this lets any potential collector or gallery understand a little more about you, your practice and allows them to connect with you on a more personal level then there is your biography which will go into a little more depth for those that wish to learn a little more about you and your work this is a combination of our CV and your artists statement and the CV itself should be very simple and informative.
Without these key texts your efforts will be hampered at every turn making an already difficult situation even harder still .
It is also a good idea to release a written piece about a chosen work to allow your audience to understand what you do , how your process works and how you came to the finished piece as understanding what you did will often increase the appreciation of the work itself I have found this particularly relevant with my works as they are photographic based.
You must put yourself out there and promote yourself as much as possible it is very difficult to put your work out there and get it initially rejected or ignored but the one thing you must never do is let this get to you and give up remember the one person you can constantly rely on is YOU.