An artist is a person engaged in creating art, or practicing the arts. The most common usage in everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only.
However, the term is also very widely used in the entertainment business to refer to actors, musicians, singers, dancers , and other performers. The French word artiste is sometimes used in English in this context, although this has become old-fashioned. 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.
