What to put on an artist website, and what to leave off

The most common problem with an artist website is not design. It is that the site is built like an archive when it needs to work like an introduction. Everything is on it, nothing is chosen, and a visitor with thirty seconds leaves without seeing the piece that would have stopped them.

A good artist site does two jobs. It gets a stranger to the work in one click, and it gives the serious ones — a gallerist, a juror, a collector, a journalist — everything they need without having to ask you for it.

What earns its place

The work, grouped as you meant it

Not a single endless scroll of everything. Group pieces into series or bodies of work, and let each one be its own page. Cohesion is what people in the art world are reading for: Carolyn Edlund, who writes on art business and sits on juries herself, puts it bluntly about submissions — "Your work needs to be tightly cohesive if you're submitting more than one image…each piece should relate to the others." The same eye is reading your website.

Each piece needs its title, year, medium, dimensions, and whether it is available. A price, or a clear way to ask, if you sell.

An about page with a photograph of you

People buy from people. A short bio in plain language, a photograph that is not a selfie, and where you work. This is also the page that ranks for your name.

An artist statement

One page, readable by a person who does not have an art degree. It sits near the work, not in front of it.

A CV

Exhibitions, education, awards, residencies, collections, press — in reverse order, dated. Erica Berkowitz, co-owner of Haven Gallery, describes what she wants to find on an artist's site: "Make sure yours is clean-cut and updated with your most recent body of work, relevant links, and C.V."

Exhibitions and events

What is coming up and where. This is the page people check before driving somewhere, and it is the one most often out of date.

A contact method that works

A form, an address, or both. Test it. Then test it again after any redesign.

A way to join your list

The single most valuable thing on the page, and the thing most artist sites do not have. Everything else is a visit; this is a visit you can repeat.

A shop, if you sell

If people can buy, let them buy. If they cannot, say what is available and how to enquire. Silence about price is not mystique; it reads as "not for sale."

What to leave off

• A splash page you have to click through. It is a door in front of a door.
• Every piece you have made since school. Editing is part of the work.
• Autoplaying music or video.
• "Coming soon" anywhere. Remove the section instead.
• Stock photography. It is instantly obvious on an artist's site.
• A blog you will abandon. One post from 2021 is worse than no blog.
• An embedded social feed you have stopped feeding. If it is current it adds life to the page; if your last post was in 2023 it advertises that. The same goes for linking your Instagram from the site — worth doing, as long as what they find there is alive.
• A contact form with nine required fields.
• Your work behind a right-click block. It stops nobody and annoys collectors.

The honest part

Most of your visitors are on a phone, often on a slow connection, frequently standing in a gallery or at a fair with your card in their hand. If the homepage takes six seconds to load because it opens with twelve full-resolution images, many of them are gone before the first one appears.

The other honest thing: this is not a one-off job. The site's job is to be current. A site whose newest work is four years old and whose events page still lists 2022 tells a gallerist something about how you run your practice.

A running order that works

1. Homepage: one strong image, your name, and a clear way into the work.
2. Work, split into series, newest series first.
3. About, with bio and photograph.
4. Statement.
5. CV.
6. Exhibitions and events.
7. Contact, with the signup next to it.
8. Shop, if you sell.

Eight pages. Most artists need fewer. If you are still deciding whether the whole exercise is worth it, start with what a website is actually for.

Common mistakes

• A homepage that says "welcome to my website" instead of showing a painting.
• Pieces with no dimensions, so nobody can picture them on a wall.
• Titles like IMG_4021, which also means the image cannot be found in search. See how people find your art on Google.
• No indication of what is available and what is sold.
• Mixing three unrelated bodies of work on one page.
• Navigation with eleven items.

How Art Easely helps

The site is built from your catalogue rather than from scratch, which is what stops it going stale.

• Add a piece once — images, title, year, medium, dimensions, framed size, price, availability — and it is ready for every page that shows it.
• Gallery sections (Masonry Gallery, Cinematic Gallery) and Shop Categories pull from the catalogue, so a new piece appears where it belongs instead of being uploaded again.
• Tags & Galleries is where you group work into series, and those groups are what the site shows as bodies of work.
• Bio and Bio Hero sections carry your bio, photograph and statement, and your CV entries show beneath them grouped by category — you choose which entries appear on the site.
• Upcoming Event List and Event Detail sections come from your events, so the exhibitions page updates when your calendar does.
• Contact with Note, Location & Contact and Newsletter Signup sections write to Contacts.
• Images are resized and served from a CDN, which is most of the phone-loading problem solved without you thinking about it.

Next: choosing the address it lives at, and what a gallerist is actually scanning for when they open it.