← OG Academy · Show your work at its best · 5 min læsning
Curate your portfolio: less is more
Showing everything you have ever made is the fastest way to look like an amateur. Choosing is part of the art.
Visitors judge you by your weakest work
People scan a portfolio in seconds and form one overall impression. Twelve strong pieces read as "this artist knows what they are doing". Those same twelve mixed with eight older, weaker works read as "this artist is still finding it".
Nothing you remove is lost. Set it to hidden, keep it in your archive, bring it back for a themed show later.
The three-pile method
Print small thumbnails or lay them out on screen and sort into three piles: proud, unsure, outgrown. Publish the proud pile. Leave the unsure pile hidden for a month and look again — you will suddenly be certain.
Do this twice a year. Your standard rises as you work, and your portfolio should rise with it.
Order matters as much as selection
Put your strongest, most typical piece first: it sets the expectation for everything after it. Then alternate — a quiet work after a loud one, a small one after a large one — so the eye keeps moving.
Finish strong too. The last work is what people carry with them when they close the tab.
One voice, not five
If you paint landscapes, make ceramics and also do portrait commissions, consider separating them into series rather than mixing them in one stream. Coherence is what makes a collector trust that the next piece will also be good.
This does not mean narrowing your practice. It means helping people understand it.
Kort fortalt
Publish only work you are proud of, sort twice a year, open and close with your strongest pieces, and group different directions into series.