THE REVIEW CHAIN
ART CHAIN INDIA︎
A democratic peer-support resource for visual artists in India, working with all media.
View available works at #ArtChainIndia︎
ARTISTIC PORTFOLIO
An artistic portfolio is a documentation of your work and by extension a visual representation of it/your practice. Most often you will be asked to submit a digital portfolio, via email or a link to a website. The digital medium certainly suits some art forms more than others but we hope to try to give ways in which it can illustrate work effectively.
While preparing for your portfolio, the quality of documentation is critical.
It is important to be mindful of this when documenting your projects, especially performances, workshops, public art etc as you won’t get a chance for a do-over.
Think about the format of documentation- will your work be best communicated by a video, a looped gif, a sequence of photos, sound sequence etc.?
Keep in mind the lighting, image quality, resolution and file format of the photos, videos and sound.
- Are the colours translating well?
- Will the resolution hold when projected onto a screen?
- Is this format common and can be opened on all Operating Systems ( Mac, Windows, Linux).
- What is the size of the file and can it be easily viewed, played and downloaded?
- PDFs and mp4s and mp3s are best formats to share image, video and sound work in.
Once you have the documentation of all your work, sift through it to select key projects and works that reflect your artistic career so far- these need not only be the best works, but works that are iterative or have developed over time or works you have struggled with.
In some projects, especially those that were time and labour- intensive, it is valuable to share sketches and other material that showcase the process.
For socially engaged art projects, public art, performances and interventions is it important to show audience interaction (if that was a part of the experience, content and/or concept of the work) and process documentation.
Here are some useful links to additional resources we found online:
https://creative-capital.org/2013/02/04/a-page-from-our-handbook-part-3-work-samples/
https://canvas.saatchiart.com/art/artist-tips/quick-and-easy-tips-for-photographing-your-artwork