Painter (Visual Arts)
What the work is
Conceives and creates visual art forms such as pictures, abstract designs and similar compositions, to communicate impressions and ideas.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Generates ideas, develops concepts, and considers the desired composition, style and colour palette for their visual art forms
- Selects appropriate mediums, such as oil or acrylic paints, inks, pencils, charcoal, pastels or watercolours
- Prepares materials, such as choosing brushes, priming canvases, walls, wood or other surfaces, and sets up the workspace
- Applies selected mediums to canvas or other surfaces using different techniques and implements to achieve the desired visual expression
- Exhibits their visual artwork in art galleries, museums or other exhibition spaces
- Sells their visual art forms directly to collectors, art enthusiasts or through online platforms or art markets
- May use virtual canvases, paint brushes and palettes to create digital visual art forms
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a shared artists' studio in a regional town, with a gallery space at the front. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- After weeks of struggling with a canvas, one colour finally makes the whole picture work
- A stranger stands in front of your piece for ten minutes and then asks what it means to you
- A commission arrives from someone who loves your work and gives you room to make it your own
Hard days
- A blank canvas and no ideas, with a gallery date getting closer
- A commission where the client wants something safer than you want to make
- Months of work that nobody buys, while rent and materials still need paying
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 231731, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.