Artist

An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage in everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only.

However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business to refer to actors, musicians, singers, dancers and other performers, in which they are known as Artiste instead. The French word Artiste is a rare variant used in English in this context. The use of the term "artist" to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts such as critics' reviews; "author" is generally used instead.